Nick Cave's "Soundsuits" are a conglomerate of found materials, textiles, and recycled materials. The are often brightly colored with rich textures and intricate beading, and jeweling. His work is described as combining haute couture, with sculpture, with performance. The first of these three images is the one that I want to describe in detail and discuss because I spent a moment with it at the BAM.
The Soundsuit is 98 x 32 x 28 inches. It is representation of a human from the thighs down, with thick woolen, knitted textile covering what represents shins, calves, and feet. The sculpture beyond the "knees or thighs" becomes a lumpy and sagging mass of stitched together straw hats. This portion of the sculpture reaches up above the viewer to a larger than life height (nearly eight feet!). The sculpture is roughly a column with very little diameter change through out the length of the piece. The colors in the piece are in a high key often tints. And are introduced in the form of doilies and knitted textiles. The overall image of the piece is a very tall pile of your grandmothers laundry with a pair of polka dot socks poking out from the mass.
This particular piece struck me as somewhat unsettling as compared to some of his other sound suits, that because they were a more uniform material, did not carry a social or cultural connotation for me. The mass of straw hats made into a human like form strangely conjured up images of a scarecrow which has been portrayed in many instances as an object of horror. But, I did observe the suit beyond the initial feeling of "creepy" and was able to appreciate the craftsmanship exhibited in the construction of the textiles, crocheting, and meshing together of many many hats and perhaps even a few purses. I found the suit, surprising, fun, whimsical, and aptly so. Nick Cave states that "he wants people to think in a magical, sort of fantastical way".
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