Soundsuit

Date: 2009
 * [[image:http://ids.si.edu/ids/deliveryService?id=http://americanart.si.edu/images/2012/2012.34A-B_1a.jpg&max=460 width="244" height="323" link="@http://americanart.si.edu/collections/search/artwork/?id=80565"]] || Title: **Soundsuit**

Artist: **Nick Cave** Born: Fulton, Missouri 1959

Medium: mixed media Dimensions: 96 x 26 x 20 in. (243.8 x 66.0 x 50.8 cm) Smithsonian American Art Museum Gift of the James Renwick Alliance and museum purchase through the Luisita L. and Franz H. Denghausen Endowment © 2009, Nick Cave. Courtesy of the artist and Jack Shainman Gallery, New York. Photo by James Prinz Photography

Accession: 2012.34A-B || //Soundsuit// is a wearable full-body sculpture. Cave intends his //Soundsuit// pieces to function as artworks as well as costumes. A miter-like structure, seen in the SAAM example, or recycled objects cover the head. Fabrics decorate the body of the SAAM suit. Other pieces by the artist exhibit body coverings of twigs, feathers, and other materials. Cave considered the crafting of each soundsuit to be an experiment. The term “soundsuit” refers to the sounds created by the movement of the wearer. Often the performances are recorded. Later Cave and his colleagues edit the footage to create new dance documentaries.
 * About the Artwork: **

The artist works as a contemporary fiber sculptor, dancer, and performance artist. Cave began making soundsuits in 1994. Contemplating his identity as an African American male following the 1991 police beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles, spurred Cave to begin making soundsuits. African and South American mask traditions and rituals also relate to the purpose of the soundsuits, which imply the taking on of another identity similar to a universal shaman. For Cave wearing the pieces liberates him from his specific gender, racial, ethnic, and religious identity.

For more information see the following sources: Atkinson, Nora. //Craft for a Modern World: The Renwick Gallery Collection// (Washington, DC: Smithsonian American Art Museum in association with D Giles Limited, 2015), 25-26.

MacMillan, Kyle and William Morrow. //Sojourn: Nick Cave// (Denver; Denver Art Museum, 2013)

Mercer, Valerie J. et all. “Diversity of Contemporary African American Art.” //Bulletin of the Detroit Institute of Arts//, 86, no. ¼ (2012), 88-123. [Available through JSTOR]

Silverman, Lanny and James H. Sanders III. Nick Cave //Soundsuits// (Chicago: Department of Cultural Affairs, 2006).

“Soundsuits: Nick Cave” (Helena, MT: Holter Museum of Art).

SAAM Collections Page Soundsuits from PBS Newshour Youtube video
 * Links: **