Nick Cave has graced the world with major exhibitions, design objects, sculptures, and installations filling public spaces from museums and gardens to the Times Square subway station. Internationally renowned for his signature Soundsuits, the artist, through singular skill and artistic alchemy, weaves fabric into majestic totems, and casts haunting, colossal figures in bronze.

His artistic imagination seemingly knows no bounds. Even a video call can become a work of art in Cave’s hands, as I discover when he pops onscreen for the interview clothed in black, framed from the neck up against a deep black background, his perfectly-lit head floating in space.

“You’re floating in a background like the Wizard,” I say to him. “Like the wizard I am,” he replies, smiling.

Cave’s playful spirit and formal adventurousness breathe life into all his works, be they needlepoint or reclaimed metal. But the joy and vitality the works project belie the painful emotions igniting the artist.

“The work has always been set within really very hard and difficult issues that have always been built and based around violence on the Black body,” says the winner of the 2025 Smithsonian Visionary Artist Award. In fact, the Missouri native created his first wearable fabric and flora Soundsuit — of which he’s since fabricated more than 500 similar forms — in response to the 1992 police beating of Rodney King.

Although, as he points out, the trauma is ongoing.

Police violence against Black bodies “is not something that is a one-time thing,” he notes. The issues persist in the world and in Cave’s psyche, and thus, in his art. “So it’s always been rooted in this heavy despair and very painful assault. And within that, I’ve got to fucking work it out,” he says, his voice rising.

“I’ve got to work out the animosity, the anger, and also I have to figure out how am I going to forgive. In order for me as a man of color to move forward, I have to fucking forgive in moments where I’m like, it’s not possible. But we all have to find these tools and methods, otherwise, we become very much caught up in this divisive system that is designed to destroy and tear us apart, and I’m not having it.”

Cave wields his tools not only to process and put in perspective the questions of identity and history that nag him, but to help others hone their own wizardry, as a professor and director of the graduate fashion program at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago.

He also keeps a studio in the Windy City, where he resides with life and professional partner, the artist and designer Bob Faust. And Cave’s studio is buzzing these days, as he prepares for two very special upcoming dates at the Smithsonian.

First, he’ll receive the Visionary Award on Wednesday, April 23, in D.C. during the Smithsonian Craft Show Preview Night Benefit at the National Building Museum. Then, next year, much sooner than you think, Cave opens Mammoth, his new large-scale, multi-media exhibition at the Smithsonian American Art Museum’s Renwick Gallery.

There, he will fill the museum’s galleries with visions of ancient creatures moving through a modern world, amidst artifacts of Cave’s own personal history.

“I am grateful to be and lucky to be an artist, and to be able to have this outlet, this place to put all of that emotion,” he says. “And somehow I’ve got to speak about strength, optimism, resilience, and joy. So it’s loaded.”

METRO WEEKLY: I’ll start by congratulating you on being selected the 2025 Smithsonian Visionary Artist. Congratulations!

NICK CAVE: Thanks.

MW: What does that mean to you, and where does that honor fit in the fantastic voyage of your career?

CAVE: Well, always you are operating out here in this sort of vast world as a creative, and you’re just doing your thing, and it’s always nice to stop and take a minute when you realize that there are people that are really paying attention to the output that you’re putting out there, and wanting to recognize that and honor you in that way. So I’m humbled, first and foremost, and thrilled.

MW: In this current environment, does the fact that you are Black and gay impart any different or more meaning to you for this honor?

CAVE: I don’t really think about it like that. I really think it’s really based on my work, and that’s what it should be purely based on. Yes, I’m proud to be Black as well as gay, but I really think it really comes down to just the work and how I make critical decisions on what I put out in the world and what that looks like, how it’s received — not perceived, but received — and just keeping it moving.

MW: The award will be given out during the Smithsonian Craft Show here in Washington. Just to clarify, will you be in attendance?

CAVE: I will be there.

MW: I presume you will not be wearing a Soundsuit.

CAVE: [Laughs.] I will not be wearing a Soundsuit.

MW: Do you know what you will be wearing?

CAVE: I’m not sure. It will be fashion, for sure. I will not disappoint.

MW: I’ve been trying to think these past few days where I have seen Soundsuits, and I’m pretty sure I saw one at the Renwick Gallery here. It just occurred to me today that I think I saw a Soundsuit in my hometown of Louisville at the 21c Museum. I’ve read and seen videos, and you talk about the fact you’ve made over 500 of these forms. How many do you think are at various museums and galleries right now?

CAVE: Oh God, I have no idea. I have no idea.

MW: Hundreds.

CAVE: I just know that it’s always interesting when I frequent a museum, not even thinking that they could own one and run into one in a gallery, and just for me, it’s really sort of… It’s amazing because then, when I’m not expecting it, I can sort of experience it the way that a viewer does for the first time. So it’s nice when I see one and then I can sort of question whether or not I think it’s good enough.

MW: Oh, interesting.

CAVE: So as you’re making it, you’re so head-in first and you’re producing this work, and then it leaves the studio never to return. And so it’s always interesting to see, did I put all that I could have in that moment in time?

MW: I guess it’s a limited perspective at a certain point, because as you say, you let it go, but what do you do while it’s in your hands to try to determine how somebody’s going to interact with it when it’s out in the world?

CAVE: Well, I don’t really have control of that, but I do have control of whether or not I feel that it’s ready to be in the world. And so I really don’t release any work until that heartbeat is there. All of a sudden the work just goes — [mimics a heartbeat] — and then I know that it’s complete.

MW: On the subject of experiencing the Soundsuit, I wasn’t aware, because I had only seen them stationary, that you sometimes performed inside the suit. So when was the last time you performed in a suit, and what do you try to express in a performance that you feel the suit isn’t saying just by itself?

CAVE: Well, the last time was probably 15 years, 20 years ago — me physically being in one, in terms of performance.

MW: Wow. Okay.

CAVE: Now when it comes to maybe photographing, then sooner than that, but I think what’s interesting is that you and I could put on the same suit and we’re going to bring to it something completely different. You’re going to move differently in it than I’m going to move in it.

So for me, I’m always curious about what I’m learning about the work as it moves in that space of performance. And what is one’s process in terms of transformation and surrendering oneself over to something other, and what does that mean? What does that look like? How do you stand in that existence, stand up, project? All of these are mental frames of mind that you have to get yourself ready for. It’s not that you can just put on a suit and start moving in it. You’ve got to understand the gravity of what that means.

MW: You have to have intention.

CAVE: So the weight of the suit is one thing. [There] may be limitations in motion, or maybe of volume. And so how do you project? I spend a lot of time coaching and really moving through this exercise of transformation, before I would even allow you to get in it. We’d talk about what is it that you’re looking at? Talking about that, and then maybe I’ll have you hold it, just so you can get a sense of the gravity in terms of weight, and then slowly introduce you to it as it sort of overcomes and dominates the body.

MW: I know you have had a relationship with the Ailey Company. Have you ever put the suits on Ailey dancers?

CAVE: Oh, yeah. We worked with the Ailey dancers in New York for a performance that ran for two weeks at Grand Central Station. It’s amazing. But again, when you’re working with dancers, dancers understand their vessel. I mean, they know that this is a tool, and so it’s really when they engage with audience, when there’s another thing that shifts in terms of, again, the idea of projection and presentation. So it’s really quite incredible when you’re working with a group of people and the camaraderie is sort of the same. It becomes this amazing energy and celebratory experience.

MW: It’s sounding very much like a bucket list wish for me. I need to see people dancing live in Nick Cave Soundsuits.

CAVE: Maybe you should be in one.

MW: Oh, sign me up! Please.

CAVE: Don’t leave yourself out.

MW: I would happily do that. I’m not an Ailey dancer, but I can dance. So, I’m looking forward to another engagement you will have in D.C. The Renwick Gallery will be exhibiting your work Mammoth starting in February, 2026. Can you describe to me what Mammoth is, and what will go into preparing for that? It’s many months away. In your perspective is that really far out, or is it really, really close?

CAVE: It’s very close. Right here, right now. We are full-on into it. I’m probably, I would say, 80 percent done with the work. But Mammoth is really this sort of survey of digging into my family history, in regards to the artistry that comes from my upbringing. I come from a family of poets, vocalists, woodworkers, seamstresses, painters, so I have been surrounded by all of this amazing talent. And everyone sort of chooses whether or not they want to pursue that as a career, as opposed to a hobby. And I’m really the only one that took the rings, like, “This is what I’m going to do, this is what I’m meant to be,” and really pursued it and took the risk.

But it’s interesting when I start to think about the core of my creative spirit, it’s really based in this amazing upbringing and just being surrounded by incredible makers and vocalists, and being present and watching all that happen in front of me. Growing up with seven brothers, I was vicariously looking at that from afar. Then, after a big dinner, my grandmothers would pull out their quilts and start quilting. Just how that brought down the house in terms of a calmness, just these sorts of things, these gestures, these wellness activities that really have been very prevalent in how I conduct a studio practice.

MW: In what materials will we be able to see this history?

CAVE: So you’ll see at the Smithsonian, it’s going to be this large island, which is going to be like a light table. And on top of that light table will be all of these artifacts either collected from the houses, from the property, the things that I was living around and within. And everything is all handmade in some capacity or another, whether or not family members made it or it was found or it was a decorative element within the household. But it’s all of these handmade artifacts that as a viewer you’ll be looking at this sort of specimen table.

Then standing within the table will be probably about ten antenna structures that are connecting me to my ancestral past that will be hovering above within that light table structure. And then there’s going to be, in that same space, five lifeguard chairs, and in the lifeguard chairs will be the sort of skeleton of these mammoth heads with the tusks, again, connecting it to ancestral past, and also operating as these sort of guardians hovering and looking over the space.

And then there’s going to be, in that room, also a typographical beaded landscape that will be on one very, very long wall, which is all made of pony beads and draped in this landscape sort of manner.

Then there’s, I think, two other separate rooms. One will be an installation of Mammoth, the performance, which will be all contained, folded in one of the small galleries, and mapping the room will be a video projection of the mammoths as they have moved through Chicago. So it’s going to be a herd that will move in neighborhoods through Chicago. So I’m interested in mammoths, from this sort of small data of the history, lineage, and all of this information being pulled together and creating this mammoth impact on my existence.

Eventually, at the Smithsonian will be a performance piece, which Kahil El’Zabar, who is this jazz percussionist, we will work with him and local musicians and vocalists from D.C., as they will be and everyone will be in sort of stadium seating. The performance will happen, and at some point, they will call in the Mammoths and they will just slowly pass through the Smithsonian exhibition hall, eventually.

MW: In what form?

CAVE: As a herd.

MW: But physically what are we seeing?

CAVE: We’re seeing 15 mammoths moving.

MW: Oh wow.

CAVE: Soundsuits. Let’s just say they’re Soundsuits. And again, it’s really about this calling, and how do we connect to the past and what do we set in place to honor and continue legacy in this sort of way.

MW: Right now, as you prepare your Smithsonian show, our president, who not only just executed a hostile takeover of the Kennedy Center, but recently, finally, turned his attention towards the Smithsonian, of which he said, and I want to just put this down: “Once widely respected as a symbol of American excellence and a global icon of cultural achievement, the Smithsonian Institution has in recent years come under the influence of a divisive, race-centered ideology.” So what are your thoughts on the possibility of this administration interfering with the mission of the Smithsonian?

CAVE: We must continue to move forward with the committed projects and, as you said, American excellence. I’m ready.

MW: Okay.

CAVE: Simple as that. Yeah. For people of color, we’ve always had to be resilient. We’ve always had to find alternative ways of continuing to move ourselves forward. So this is not — I’m not really bothered by it, because I have to do what I have to do. And I am going to change absolutely nothing about the work that I’m presenting there, nor am I changing the language, none of it. Whether or not the Smithsonian will change their language, that’s their choice, but I’m not doing anything.

MW: I appreciate that. Has any institution that you’ve worked with ever tried to, or indicated some desire for you to change something based on ideology?

CAVE: No, and I wouldn’t anyway. I’m just not for any of that, period. I would let a project go before I would change any of that.

MW: In general, to what degree does ideology inform what you’re creating?

CAVE: And that is the question: how is that determined? What clarifies this ideology being this way or that way? How is that broken down, and who are you to tell me that? I get back to that little brief statement that you read, and I thought, “American excellence, well, okay, that’s what I’m doing.”

MW: And there’s no ideology behind those words, American excellence.

CAVE: Yeah. So if you want to then get into race, that’s a whole ‘nother thing. But I’m American, so.

MW: The magazine’s art director Todd Franson loaned me your artbook Forothermore, which is gorgeous by the way. But you opened and closed the book with pages listing BIPOC individuals who were killed by police. I can gather what led you to do that, but why did you want to open and close this book that way?

CAVE: Because that book, that exhibition, was created in homage to all of those that have been violated. I don’t know what I would be making if that wasn’t a concern of mine. I’m curious to know, what kind of work would I be making if I wasn’t dictated by what’s going on in the world around race and identity? So I will never know that. It’s just interesting when I think about just that, what would I be making? What would be my concerns?

MW: I had that question also, but clearly this is something you’re called to reflect to the world, a world that really does not pay enough attention to the points that you’re making, in a general sense, not just when it’s your work.

CAVE: So it opens up with honoring all these victims. I am really paying homage to every single person in the best way that I can, in the most extraordinary way that I can, and celebrating their lives, and continuing to fight and move ourselves forward.

MW: I would be curious to hear what answers you come up with, as far as what your other concerns might be if this were a different world. I think we could all ask ourselves, what would we be worried about if we didn’t have to worry about this?

CAVE: What I have done in order to gain back my power is that I have shifted this idea that my work is dictated by societal trauma. And what I have now done is I am now putting the idea of that first, this idea of, I want to talk about my queerness and… Well, even within that there’s violence. So I’m like, okay. But I’m interested in talking about, [and] my most recent show is, really me for the first time coming out from underneath the Soundsuits. So it’s all about me. It’s the beginning of the self-portrait series all in needlepoint, which opened at the new Jack Shainman Gallery in Tribeca, in January [Nick Cave: Amalgams and Graphts]. Also with that show were these needlepoints and then this new bronze work. It just closed a week ago.

MW: I’m going to be in New York and I’ve already put on the list the murals that you did in the Times Square subway station. I was watching a video of the MTA director of arts and design talking about the work and how it brings beauty down into the subway, and her point of view being that beauty brings out our better nature, which is a nice thought. Do you agree with that? Do you think people’s capacity to appreciate beauty has changed or diminished?

CAVE: Beauty is compassion, I think. Beauty is feeling, in a different way. I mean, let me tell you, the mosaics are extraordinary. I didn’t even think they were going to be that extraordinary because I was really concerned about the translation of material to glass, and I am telling you, it is so epic. Oh, my God. So eventually I’m going to move into mosaic as well.

But down there you will encounter all these shamans. In one section, there’s about 12 shamans in a row, all very different. The question is, which one is you? Which one will you stand in front of and say, “I am one with this being.” So I’m thinking about things like that, and this whole idea of descending down below the ground, and then there’s another mural where they are sort of ascending up. There’s a piece that’s right below where the ball falls. So thinking about that sort of evolution. Yeah, there’s three major, major installations there.

MW: I will definitely find that the next time I’m in New York. Where or when or how did you learn to appreciate the beauty in art?

CAVE: I think from my upbringing. I think from my parents as a kid, just by them telling me “You’re such a beautiful person. You have such a beautiful soul,” and just conditioning me to believe in that. I think that’s where it all comes from. And that has always been like, I’m coated in that as an armor of sorts, and so I’ve always used beauty as a weapon. I’ve always used beauty as a form of resistance.

MW: I like “beauty as a form of resistance.” On the subject of beauty and fashion, I know you design fashions. Where would somebody get a Nick Cave design? Do we have to contact you for couture commissions?

CAVE: Right now, sure, yeah. But I think, well, I don’t know, it could happen in this life — I would love to be able to design for a house, for sure.

MW: One other thing I was curious about, because we interacted with your partner Bob in setting this all up, and I was reading about Bob’s work and your collaboration. In your experience, is there any particular challenge to being a two-artist household?

CAVE: No, absolutely not. I think the most important thing is that you both have your own lives, first and foremost, you have your own ideas. You’re two different people, and so it’s up to you what that looks like in terms of designing that aspect of your life.

And then we come together and then we separate, and we come together and we do this [motions intertwining hands and pulling them apart, then coming back together]. You have to realize that you have your own ambitions and dreams, and sometimes they don’t align, and if that’s going to be problematic, then you may have to separate. But you have to take care of yourself and your spirit. You have to be able to somehow figure out how you’re going to become whole, and then you’re able to share the love.

MW: That sounds like truth. Something else that you mentioned in Forothermore, I think it was in thanking the people involved with the book, you mentioned that “to be relevant in art history is something [you] aspire to be.” I think most artists feel that way, but not everybody would be bold enough to say it, especially in print. How do you think it’s going?

CAVE: Oh, it’s amazing. It’s amazing. The thing that’s amazing for me right now is when these parents or these teachers that are teaching in elementary or junior high, they’re like, I’m built into their curricula. I mean, that is just so sweet to think, “Whoa, I’m part of this!” They did an art project on Soundsuits and they sent me all of these images of the kids building their own Soundsuits. These self-portraits.

And the freedom, oh, my God, I’m telling you, some of these drawings and these things that they make are so incredible! So when I look at that, I think about how do I maintain that free-spirited person within the studio practice. How do I stay fluid? How do I stay open and just accepting things in the moment, and nothing’s perfect, and how does the imperfection become extraordinary? It’s just great to see it and to see the imagination, the mind, working in this extraordinary way.

The Smithsonian Craft Show is open to the public from April 24 to 27 at the National Building Museum, 401 F St. NW. Tickets are $25 for general admission and $35 for unlimited multi-day admission. Children under 12 are free with an accompanied adult ticket. Visit www.smithsoniancraftshow.org.

The Smithsonian Craft Show Awards are presented during the Preview Night Benefit on Wednesday, April 23 at the National Building Museum. The presentation to Nick Cave will run from 4:45 to 6 p.m., followed by a party from 6 to 9 p.m. Tickets are $300 to $550. Visit www.smithsoniancraftshow.org.

Nick Cave: Mammoth will be on view from February 2026 to January 2027 at the Renwick Gallery, Pennsylvania Ave. at 17th St. NW. Free admission. Visit americanart.si.edu.

Visit www.nickcaveart.com.