Nick Cave (American, born 1959)
Rescue, 2013

Run Time: 1:50
Recorded by Megan Cohen, Associate Registrar / April 27, 2020

My name is Megan Cohen and I’m an Associate Registrar at the Des Moines Art Center and I‘m going to talk about Nick Cave‘s Rescue, from 2013.

Nick Cave is probably most well-known for his performance art in decorative costumes called “soundsuits”. Several of the high detailed elements in Cave’s earlier “soundsuit” works can be seen in his later sculptures, such as Rescue.

Looking at Rescue, you see a life-sized doberman sitting regal and proud, on this 70’s looking yellow velvet loveseat. Above the Doberman is a canopy of tangled colorful beads on string, a functioning lit chandelier, metal flowers, and a couple dozen or more ceramic birds. There are so many elements going on in this canopy, which kind of creates a thrown for the dog that you’re really pulled into the piece to look at it more closely. When you do that, you’ll see that these various birds which the artist collects at flea markets, are each unique. One is a wild turkey liquor bottle, another, what looks like a gravy boat. These knick-knacks, combined with the yellow loveseat feel so nostalgic to me. My grandparents always had ceramic little decorations just like these birds throughout their house. They also had a short little yellow loveseat like this one, that was just my height as a little kid and I loved it so much. I’m guessing there’s something you too find familiar about this sculpture, and so this artwork unites us in a sentimental way.

Now, I would be remised if I didn’t add that Nick Cave’s work is rooted in themes of racial inequality and LGBTQ activism that I have not touched on here and I would encourage you if you’re interested to read more on how those themes are found in his artwork.

Nick Cave (American, born 1959)
Rescue, 2013

Run Time: 2:36
Recorded by Jared Ledesma, Associate Curator / May 10, 2021

This is Jared Ledesma Associate Curator at the Des Moines Art Center and today I am speaking about Nick Cave. Nick grew up in Columbus, Missouri as part of the only black family living in a predominantly white neighborhood in that area. He attended the Kansas City Art Institute and at the time was the only black student there. He talks about while in school and later he would create these outfits, these drag outfits and would go dancing in nightclubs and dance alone. And he also talks about how the work that he creates now it doesn't quite represent his sexuality as a gay man, as a gay black man but it's there because it is who he is and it's part of him. What's great about the work Rescue, which is part of a series of works that look similar to ours, is that he calls them ghetto fabulous on one hand and regal on the other. I think that dichotomy is really important because he's playing with the word dog and if we think of the word as the spelling D-A-W-G in reference to hip hop culture and also to black culture in general and then we think of royalty and how there's this history of canines existing in western art history as being royal or belonging to royal families or to upper class families as a symbol of power and ownership. So in this work we have that duality or dichotomy which I think is really fascinating. And then here the doberman is surrounded or kind of incased, sort of living in this, or guarding so to speak, this nest of bric a brac materials or objects that Cave found in thrift stores around Chicago. And what's great is that these objects, they're familiar to us, some of our grandmas might have had them, we might have seen them growing up and they're also really kitschy and campy and playful. And there’s also this reference towards this idea of camp, this over-the-top kind of sensibility that has been connected to, by historians and philosophers in the past, to sexuality, too queer sexuality as kind of using this over topness to subvert heterosexuality and heterosexual norms.