“Nick Cave: Feat. Nashville”
April 6, 2018 — Schermerhorn Symphony Center
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (March 21, 2017)—The sold-out public performances of Nick Cave: Feat. Nashville at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center on April 6, 2018, will be livestreamed in the Frist Art Museum’s auditorium and viewable at FristArtMuseum.org as well as the Frist’s Facebook page.
The free large-scale performances will include three customized compositions (“Blanket Statement,” “Heard,” and “Up Right”) that combine a variety of genres, from music and dance to spoken word, with Cave’s signature soundsuits as part of the visual extravaganza. An explosion of color, sound, and energy, Cave’s art often defies traditional definitions and is unforgettable once it has been encountered.
In addition to creating elaborate and thought-provoking objects for presentation in galleries and museums, as in the exhibition Nick Cave: Feat., on view at the Frist Art Museum through June 24, Cave wants to engage a broader audience. The titles of the exhibition and the performances, with their abbreviation of the word “feature,” invoke the larger purpose behind Cave’s involvement with the Frist Art Museum: to feature the people and issues of Nashville by way of artistic performance. The artist’s commitment to “hiring the community” means that Cave is collaborating with local preprofessional and professional choreographer, dancers, musicians, students, and community leaders to produce Nick Cave: Feat. Nashville. Together, the artist, the cast, the crew, and the audience will explore themes of identity, social justice, and the power of art to transform our world, doing so from multiple vantage points.
The months-long community engagement project has engaged Middle Tennessee’s increasingly multicultural population through ten social services organizations (see below). Cave’s wondrous and awe-inspiring performances explore timely themes of identity, social justice, and the power of art to transform our world. In one of the compositions, members of our community will cover Cave’s body with up to 30 beaded blankets to symbolize a transfer of the weight and burdens we carry in our individual lives. The blankets are being made during “bead-a-thons” organized by the Frist Art Museum’s sustaining community partners. In addition, all are welcome to attend the free workshops held at the Frist Art Museum through Wednesday, March 28. Visit FristArtMuseum.org/studio to see the full schedule.
“At the heart of Cave’s practice is his belief that art can be an agent of connectivity and compassion,” says Frist Art Museum curator Katie Delmez. “A self-described messenger, he wants his work to extend beyond museum and gallery walls to reach and include a population that may not often experience meaningful aesthetic or cultural events.”
Performance Participants
Production Stage Manager: Deb Climo
Poets: Ciona Rouse; Rashad Rayford a.k.a. Rashad thaPoet
Dancers: MTSU Dance Department; New Dialect
Musicians: Dave Ragland, music director; Pearl Cohn High School Marching Band; Inversion Music Ensemble; TSU Meistersingers; Fisk University Choir; Diaspora; and others
Community Partners: Centennial Art Center; Conexión Américas; Down Syndrome Association of Middle Tennessee; Edmondson Pike Branch Library; FiftyForward J.L. Turner Center; Hadley Park Community Center; Oasis Center; Poverty & the Arts; Safe Haven Family Shelter; Thistle Farms
Performance and Livestream Times
April 6, 2018: Matinee at 10:00 a.m. for schools, homeschooled students, families, and the general public. Evening performance at 7:30 p.m. for the general public. Both sold-out performances will be held at the Schermerhorn Symphony Center. Livestreaming in the Frist Art Museum auditorium. First come, first seated.
Commemorative Poster
Nick Cave has collaborated with Nashville’s iconic letterpress shop Hatch Show Print to create a limited edition poster, which will be for sale at the performances on April 6.
About the Artist
Nick Cave was born in Fulton, Missouri, in 1959. He received a BFA from the Art Institute of Kansas City and an MFA in fiber arts from Cranbrook Academy of Art, outside of Detroit. Cave’s work has been featured in monographic exhibitions around the globe, at venues such as the Cranbrook Art Museum, the Denver Art Museum, the Institute of Contemporary Art in Boston, and the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, and is housed in the permanent collections of many major institutions, including the Brooklyn Museum, the Detroit Institute of Arts, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, and the Museum of Modern Art. Cave has received several prestigious awards, among them the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award, the Artadia Award, the Joyce Award, and multiple Creative Capital Grants. He has lived and worked in Chicago since 1990 and is the Stephanie and Bill Sick Professor of Fashion, Body, and Garment at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago. He is represented by Jack Shainman Gallery in New York.
Exhibition Credit
Exhibition and program organized by the Frist Art Museum
Support
Performance support is provided by The Bonnaroo Works Fund, an Art Works grant by the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Creation grant courtesy of the Metro Nashville Arts Commission.
This performance is supported in part by the Metro Nashville Arts Commission and the Tennessee Arts Commission.
Exhibition Sponsors
Silver Sponsor: Ameriprise Financial. Additional support provided by an NEA Art Works grant.
This exhibition is supported in part by the Metro Nashville Arts Commission, the Tennessee Arts Commission, and the National Endowment for the Arts.
MEDIA CONTACTS
Buddy Kite: 615.744.3351, ”
Ellen Jones Pryor: 615.243.1311, ”
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About the Frist Art Museum
Accredited by the American Alliance of Museums, the Frist Art Museum is a 501(c)(3) nonprofit art exhibition center dedicated to presenting and originating high-quality exhibitions with related educational programs and community outreach activities. Located at 919 Broadway in downtown Nashville, Tenn., the Frist Art Museum offers the finest visual art from local, regional, national, and international sources in a program of changing exhibitions that inspire people through art to look at their world in new ways. The Frist Art Museum’s Martin ArtQuest Gallery features interactive stations relating to Frist Art Museum exhibitions. Information on accessibility is at FristArtMuseum.org/accessibility. Gallery admission is free for visitors 18 and younger and to members; $12 for adults; $9 for seniors and college students with ID; and $7 for active military. College students are admitted free Thursday and Friday evenings (with the exception of Frist Fridays), 5:00–9:00 p.m. Discounts are offered for groups of 10 or more with advance reservations by calling 615.744.3247. The galleries, café, and gift shop are open seven days a week: Mondays through Wednesdays, and Saturdays, 10:00 a.m.–5:30 p.m.; Thursdays and Fridays, 10:00 a.m.–9:00 p.m.; and Sundays, 1:00–5:30 p.m., with the café opening at noon. Additional information is available by calling 615.244.3340 or by visiting FristArtMuseum.org.
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