By Robert Hill
Artist Nick Cave is presenting his new body of artwork titled “Mammoth” at the Smithsonian American Art Museum in Washington, D.C.
The exhibition opened Feb. 13 and features mammoths displayed as large-scale sculptures and in video installations. His artwork explores history, identity, and social reflection. The show marks Cave’s first solo exhibition in Washington, D.C., bringing his work to the nation’s capital and highlighting art and cultural conversation.
Cave is known for creating large-scale artworks that prompt his viewers to think about history and identity.
Cave, a Black artist raised in Missouri and now based in Chicago, known for his celebrated “Soundsuits,” sculptural garments that merge fashion, performance, and visual art. Originally created in response to the 1991 Rodney King beating, the works conceal the wearer’s identity, challenging assumptions about race, gender, and class while symbolizing protection and empowerment. Cave, who has been exhibited at major museums nationwide, activates his pieces through dance and collaborative performances, often staging large community events in unconventional spaces. Some of his artwork also explores themes surrounding slavery and racist imagery.
Within the Smithsonian show, he uses a prehistoric animal as a visual centerpiece, displaying it in a way that influences his audience to reflect on the past and its connection to present-day conversations. He also included family heirlooms and other items to assemble the show.
To make this happen, Cave gathered all the elements in his studio, strategically plotted how everything would appear, and worked on site for two weeks. The piece is built from open metal frames, wispy hair, and other materials. He added a collection of his grandfather’s tools, his brother’s wooden cane, and his grandmother’s ceramic florals into the creation of his sculptures.
He connects his artwork to today’s broader concerns about the erasure of history, referencing how the Trump administration’s order urged Smithsonian museums to remove what it described as “Improper Ideology.” However, the show is continuing, especially given the current state of the world.
As reported by CNN, “I’m witnessing a time where history is being erased, but yet history is being revealed at the same time,” Cave explained. “And so, when I think about mammoths, I think that at one point, they existed on the Earth, and then were extinct and buried, and then rediscovered. What is erased becomes revealed. What is removed, reappears.”
The goal of the “Mammoth” exhibition is to allow viewers to spend time with each object and form their own observations and meanings, just as Cave did.
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