Monumental Nick Cave Show Inaugurates Jack Shainman’s Tribeca Flagship

The artist’s response to his longtime dealer’s ambitious project expectedly delivers the dramatic effect. Titled Amalgam (Origin), the show’s anchor is a 310-inch tall bronze sculpture of the artist himself covered in a plethora of flora. In fact, the upper portion of the body is completely immersed in plants and flowers, which renders the artist anonymous yet with abundant potential to blossom. The towering statement summarizes Cave’s next chapter in his three-decade long career. After 2022’s blockbuster MCA Chicago retrospective, “Forothermore,” which also traveled to the Guggenheim, the Midwest-native found himself at a point of self-reassessment.

“I was able to survey my history as an artist and I realized that I can close this chapter of my creative career at this point,” explains Cave about his “resolution.” He realized the need for a new path—the answer was needlepointing. “I learned to needlepoint first to understand and communicate the process,” he says. The connection between the craft technique and his seminal “Soundsuits” sculptures in terms of labor, flamboyance, and tactility was another allure. After grasping the essence of the labor, he passed it on to his studio team, and together, they ventured on a collective journey which led to the show’s colorful collages on wood panel. He describes his team as “sensitive to the consistency within a practice” which allowed for long communal rituals of needlepointing: “They can each get quite within themselves and find their rhythm.”

Besides featuring numerous vintage serving trays, their most significant trait is Cave’s own likeness. The artist’s own imagery appears in such vivacity for the first time in his oeuvre. “I am coming out from behind and underneath the facade,” he explains and confirms a more “identity-focused” practice in near future. Each titled Grapht (2024), eight works in different scales blend images of Cave in different attires with a medley of serving trays decorated with lush floral patterns. The ubiquitous tools sparkle various connotations for Cave who started out by studying fiber art at Kansa City Art Institute in the early 1980s. “There is the element of service and being served, as well as a gathering,” he says. He is fascinated by the historic tradition of painting the tin trays to conceal the rusting, a gesture of beautification to alter time’s touch. The artist’s path of collecting the trays overlapped with his foray into needlepointing.

The breezy firmness of bronze which Cave also utilizes for another sculpture titled Amalgam (Plot) falls into a captivating contrast with soft yarn in a rich array of colors. The three dimensional floor work embodies two figures spread on the ground covered in tole flowers. The direct reference to the ongoing police murder of Black people expands the artist’s long history of exploring the subject, while the flowers capture mourning as well as transformation and hope.

The future is already bright and abundant for Cave who relishes the upcoming spring that will blossom in his garden after a grey Chicago winter. The new season will also spread his new body of work out far. The show’s large sculpture joins the permanent collection of Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park in Grand Rapids this spring in addition to new projects at the Smithsonian and Princeton University Art Museum. The next big outing of his needlepoint work will be in a few years in Paris where Cave feels the work belongs: “There is something about the city’s opulence and the golden era—I want to put Blackness into that environment.”

“Nick Cave: Amalgams and Graphts” is on view through March 15, 2025.

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