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‘Nick Cave: Until’ At The Momentary Delivers Everything You Could Ask Of An Art Exhibition In 2020

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“Innocent until proven guilty.”

“Innocent until you become a target.”

“Innocent until you look suspicious.”

“Guilty until proven innocent.”

“Guilty until police brutality ends.”

“Guilty until justice is served.”

Those are the words of Nick Cave.

Unlike the volumes of contemporary artists attempting to be coy about the meaning inherent in their work or leaving it up to individual viewers to interpret them, Cave immediately confronts onlookers with what is on his mind, what keeps him up at night.

“Nick Cave: Until” is the largest and most ambitious project of his standout career and it can be seen at the Momentary in Bentonville, Arkansas through January 3, 2021.

Cave has an unconventional way of communicating his anger and the unending abuse Black people suffer at the hands of police. Instead of dark, heavy, gloomy colors and materials, Cave once again creates a visual feast for the eyes, joyful in its lightness and color.

“Nick Cave: Until” spans over 24,000-square-feet of gallery space at the Momentary, bursting with colorful wind spinners, wallpapers, found objects, beads and a crystal cloud beckoning visitors to climb its ladders and discover a private garden populated by black-face lawn jockeys.

If you didn’t know better you might mistake this as a setting for the world’s greatest Sweet 16 party.

The world’s greatest and most complex Sweet 16 party.

It took seven and a half weeks to unpack and install the entire exhibition which spreads across six separate installations. Cave and an assistant from his studio were on site for parts of the process. Nearly 10 preparators from both the Momentary and Crystal Bridges, the Momentary’s “big sister,” next-door-neighbor institution, were required to put everything in place in addition to three members from MASS MoCA, who organized the exhibition, for two of the six-week install phase.

“We’ve been working with (Cave and Denise Markonish, curator at MASS MoCA) for years on floorplans and ideas and how it would all fit and work in our space,” Lauren Haynes, director of artist initiatives and curator, contemporary art at the Momentary and Crystal Bridges, told Forbes.com.

Combating hostility with an outward appearance of joy has long defined Cave’s career. His fantastical, ebullient, decorative “Soundsuits–the wearable, sculptural, full-body costumes which launched Cave into contemporary art superstardom–could be mistaken for playthings designed for Mardis Gras.

Quite the opposite.

The original “Soundsuit” took shape in 1992 as a response to the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers. He’s lost track of how many he’s produced since, at least 500.

Why so many? Because the brutality and violence from police against Black people hasn’t stopped.

For that reason, while the Momentary has been planning this show for years, long before the public knew the names George Floyd, Breonna Taylor or Ahmaud Arbery, the exhibition has a “ripped from the headlines feel.”

“’Until’ is as important and relevant as it has always been,” Haynes said. “Nick originally developed the idea many years ago. Police violence against Black people has been happening for a very long time so it is still extremely important and relevant.”

“Nick Cave: Until” seeks to position visitors inside one of his Soundsuits–so named because once worn, all of the objects he’s used to create the suit make a sound. Guests imagine taking the artist’s place in a Soundsuit, which means taking a place in his mind and in his history.

As a young boy, Cave’s mother told him about, “the complexity of what I’d have to deal with (as a Black man),” he recalls. Understanding forced him to realize he’d need to develop a tough skin to protect himself from, “a world that could work against me as opposed to for me.”

Once inside a Soundsuit, gender, race and class are hidden, offering would-be safety to the tens of millions of Americans prejudiced, abused and hunted not only by police, but the long list of the country’s racist institutions.

This is the background from which the outwardly whimsical, gleeful, celebratory Soundsuits evolve.

“I don’t ever see the Soundsuits as fun,” Cave has said. “They’re coming from a very dark place.”

“Until” was born following the shooting death of Michael Brown at the hands of police in Ferguson, Missouri, Cave’s home state, and responds to a provocative question: “Is there racism in heaven?”

“’Until’ is meant to be a place for reflection and introspection on race and gun violence in America,” Cave has said. “The ideas and topics covered in ‘Until’ are front of mind for many Black Americans on a day-to-day basis. I hope that with ‘Until,’ others will spend some time considering these important issues and what they can do to help make change.”

Throughout the duration of “Nick Cave: Until,” the galleries at the Momentary will serve as a studio and stage for a select group of 11 local and regional artists. Working across multiple forms of expression including dance, theater, writing and fashion, the artists have created their own responses to the questions asked by Cave in the exhibition.

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