Nick Cave

Acclaimed American artist Nick Cave’s video work, entitled Ba Boom Boom Pa Pop Pop, made specifically for Art on theMART, featured completely original footage together with remastered content from Cave’s original film Drive-By (2011). The work makes use of THE MART’s unique location and the building’s status as an iconic Chicago landmark. Bridging dance, performance, film and public art, Cave’s new projection features his iconic Soundsuits in motion. Brightly colored figures danced across the building's iconic riverside façade, transporting the viewer to a kaleidoscopic other world on the river’s edge. Amidst the flurry of movement, a figure adorned with a stop-sign emerges, reminding viewers of the underlying sense of urgency despite the jubilant expression of freedom.

Based in Chicago, Nick Cave is an artist, educator and foremost a messenger, working between the visual and performing arts through a wide range of mediums including sculpture, installation, video, sound and performance. Cave is well known for his Soundsuits, sculptural forms based on the scale of his body, initially created in direct response to the police beating of Rodney King in 1991. Soundsuits camouflage the body, masking and creating a second skin that conceals race, gender and class, forcing the viewer to look without judgment. They serve as a visual embodiment of social justice that represent both brutality and empowerment.

The Joyce Foundation is a private, nonpartisan philanthropy that invests in public policies and strategies to advance racial equity and economic mobility for the next generation in the Great Lakes region.