The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago (MCA) and celebrated Chicago artist Nick Cave today announced that the blockbuster exhibition, Forothermore, must closing at the MCA October 2nd. The most comprehensive survey of Cave’s work to date, the exhibition is curated by Naomi Beckwith, former MCA Manilow Senior Curator, MCA Chicago.
“I feel honored that my home city has supported me and now celebrates me in such a complete way,” said Cave. “It’s a very special place for me to be.”
Hailed as “a safe space Cave has carefully designed to challenge and disorient you, while bolstering your psyche with tole flowers and sequins” by Fast Company and “varied, moving and immersive” by Chicago Tribune, the exhibition has welcomed over 85,000 guests since opening in May.
“Nick Cave’s work perfectly exemplifies the MCA’s mission to present Chicago artists while furthering art as a catalyst for social discourse and activism,” said MCA’s Pritzker Director, Madeleine Grynsztejn. “It has been an honor and a privilege for the museum to celebrate this incredible artist’s work in his home city and put Chicago’s vibrant art ecosystem at the forefront of the global art community’s consciousness.”
For over three decades, Cave has centered his artistic practice on community building and addressing pressing societal issues related to race, gender, sexuality and class. First coming to prominence with his acclaimed Soundsuits series, Cave is celebrated for his projects that eloquently blend community building with vibrant works of art across disciplines, including immersive installations, textural sculptures, impeccably crafted fashions and dynamic videos and performances. In addition to being an artist, Cave is also a prominent activist and educator.
Following its tenure at the MCA, a recast version of Forothermore will travel to the Guggenheim museum in New York City for an exhibition opening November 18, 2022, that is also curated by Naomi Beckwith, who currently serves as Deputy Director and Jennifer and David Stockman Chief Curator of the Guggenheim Museum.
A variety of programming is slated to accompany the final works of Forothermore, including:
Talk | The Color Is: A Behind-the-Scenes Conversation
Saturday, October 01, 2022 2:00 pm - 3:30 pm
Free | Edlis Neeson Theater
https://visit.mcachicago.org/events/talk-the-color-is-a-behind-the-scenes-conversation/
Earlier this year, artists and brothers Nick and Jack Cave created The Color Is—a multimedia extravaganza combining art, fashion and performance hosted inside the Roundhouse at the DuSable Museum of African American History. The Color Is paid tribute to Black excellence and innovation throughout history, drawing on influences including the Ebony Fashion Fair, ball culture, and the iconic Emerald City sequence from the 1978 film The Wiz. Director Claude-Aline Miller documented the whole production, creating a film that honors this unique experience. For this special event, Miller will premiere 366 Days her film capturing The Color Is, and will be joined by Nick and Jack Cave to discuss the project after the screening. The conversation will be moderated by Bob Faust, an artist, designer and Special Projects Director for Nick Cave.
Screening | 376 Days
Sunday, October 02, 2022 11:00 am, 1:00 pm, 3:00 pm
Free with museum admission. Seating is available on a walk-up basis. | Edlis
Neeson Theater
Earlier this year, artists and brothers Nick and Jack Cave created The Color Is—a multimedia extravaganza combining art, fashion, and performance hosted inside the Roundhouse at the DuSable Museum of African American History. The Color Is paid tribute to Black excellence and innovation throughout history, drawing on influences including the Ebony Fashion Fair, ball culture, and the iconic Emerald City sequence from the 1978 film The Wiz. Director Claudie Miller documented the whole production, creating a film that honors this unique experience. On October 2, the final day of the MCA exhibition Nick Cave: Forothermore, the film will play in the MCA Theater three times at 11 am, 1 pm and 3 pm. This event is free with the price of admission and requires no ticket.
Reflecting the artist’s three-dimensional approach, Forothermore is designed as an immersive journey that begins with Spinner Forest and continues in the galleries with the artist’s cast bronze sculptures, tapestries made from sequined garments, color-saturated videos, and breath-taking installations such as the larger-than-life Beaded Cliff Wall that is comprised of millions of colorful pony beads threaded by hand into shoelaces. Displayed against a backdrop of floor-to-ceiling geometric vinyl wallpaper collaboratively designed with the artist’s partner and art graphic designer Bob Faust, Forothermore traces artistic themes and Cave’s evolving interests over three decades, with works from as early as 1989.
Forothermore features over a dozen works from Cave’s Soundsuit series in addition to the debut of his new series, Soundsuits 9:29. The head-to-toe garments are constructed with a mélange of materials, among them beads, pearls, wire, feather, sequins, synthetic hair, and twigs. Originally created by Cave in response to the Rodney King beating in 1992, Soundsuits 9:29 addresses today’s heightened social unrest and reckoning for racial justice in the wake of the death of George Floyd in 2020.
Another highlight of the exhibition is Cave’s immersive 14-channel, room-sized video installation Hy-Dyve, that surrounds visitors with projections of flowing water, blinking eyes and mysterious creatures and patterns. Forothermore also includes Cave’s recent series of sculptures of carved and cast bronze hands, heads and limbs decorated with flowers, candles and found objects such as used shotgun shells.
Nick Cave: Forothermore is presented in the Griffin Galleries of Contemporary Art on the museum’s fourth floor.
Recently extended and running concurrently with Forothermore, Cave’s projection Ba Boom Boom Pa Pop Pop will run on Art on theMART, the world’s largest permanent digital art projection, through October 2. Bridging dance, performance, film and public art, Ba Boom Boom Pa Pop Pop features Cave’s iconic Soundsuits in motion. Brightly colored figures dance across theMART’s iconic 2.5-acre riverside façade, transporting the viewer to a kaleidoscopic otherworld on the river's edge. Amidst the flurry of movement, a figure adorned with a stop-sign emerges, reminding viewers of the underlying sense of urgency despite the jubilant expression of freedom.
In addition to the MCA and Art on theMART, Cave’s work can be found in locations across the city of Chicago, including Free/Formal at the Garfield Green Line station, Rapt on the Mile at 679 N. Michigan Avenue, Wallworks at 21c Museum Hotel Chicago and Tondo at One Bennett Park.
About Nick Cave
Nick Cave (b. 1959, Fulton, MO; lives and works in Chicago, IL) is an artist, educator and foremost a messenger, working between the visual and performing arts through a wide range of mediums including sculpture, installation, video, sound and performance. Cave is well known for his Soundsuits, sculptural forms based on the scale of his body, initially created in direct response to the police beating of Rodney King in 1991. Soundsuits camouflage the body, masking and creating a second skin that conceals race, gender and class, forcing the viewer to look without judgment. They serve as a visual embodiment of social justice that represent both brutality and empowerment.
About The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago
The Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago is a nonprofit, tax-exempt organization accredited by the American Alliance of Museums. The MCA has become a model for 21st-century contemporary art museums—an artist-activated, audience-engaged space for generating art, ideas and conversation around the creative process. The museum is generously supported by its Board of Trustees; individual and corporate members; private and corporate foundations, including the John D. and Catherine T. MacArthur Foundation; and government agencies. Programming is partially supported by a grant from the Illinois Arts Council Agency. Museum capital improvements are supported by a Public Museum Capital Grant from the Illinois Department of Natural Resources. The MCA is a proud member of Museums in the Park and receives major support from the Chicago Park District. The MCA is located at 220 E. Chicago Avenue, one block east of Michigan Avenue. The museum and sculpture garden are open Wednesday through Sunday from 10 am to 5 pm and Tuesday from 10 am to 8 pm. The museum is closed on Monday. Tuesdays are Community Free Days with free admission for Illinois residents. Suggested general admission is $12 for adults and $7 for students and seniors. Children 12 years of age and under, MCA members, and members of the military are admitted free. Information about MCA exhibitions, programs, and special events fis available on the MCA website at mcachicago.org or by phone at 312.280.2660.
Exhibition Sponsors
Lead individual sponsorship for Nick Cave: Forothermore is generously contributed by Kenneth C. Griffin.
Lead support is provided by the Harris Family Foundation in honor of Bette and Neison Harris, IL Department of Commerce and Economic Opportunity, Toni and Ron Paul, Pam Szokol, Linda and Bill Friend, and Stephanie and John Harris; Zell Family Foundation; Cari and Michael J. Sacks; Nancy and Steven Crown; Matt Bayer and Joyce Yaung and the Bayer Family Foundation; Julie and Larry Bernstein; Marilyn and Larry Fields; Agnes Gund; Jack Shainman Gallery; and Karyn and Bill Silverstein.
Major support is provided by Murat Ahmed and Katherine Mackenzie; the Bluhm Family; Ellen-Blair Chube; Lois and Steve Eisen and the Eisen Family Foundation; Denise and Gary Gardner; Jack and Sandra Guthman; The Joyce Foundation; Anne L. Kaplan; Susie L. Karkomi and Marvin Leavitt; Kovler Family Foundation; Liz and Eric Lefkofsky; Jennifer and Alec Litowitz; Conor O’Neil/McCormick Family Foundation; Ashley Hemphill Netzky and Pamela Netzky; Carol Prins and John Hart/The Jessica Fund; and Rebekah and Ilan Shalit.
Generous support is contributed by Heiji and Brian Black, Dr. Anita Blanchard and Martin H. Nesbitt, Tonya and Matt Geesman, Nickol and Darrel Hackett, Katie and Billy Hutchens, Brenda and Steffan Jacobsen, Linda Johnson Rice, Diane Kahan, Marisa Murillo, Nathaniel Robinson, Catherine Ross and Chris Liguori, and Douglas and Yumi Ross.
This project is supported in part by an award from the National Endowment for the Arts.