Nick Cave, Xavier Hufkens Gallery, Bruxelles — En images
At the Xavier Hufkens Gallery in Brussels, the musician, actor, and icon of alternative rock Nick Cave presents an exhibition of his sculptures, a parallel endeavor he has been pursuing since 2020.
Before leaving university to pursue music, Nick Cave studied painting. Passionate about ceramics for several years, he presents his first series of works featuring the adventures of a Devil, adopting the style of Victorian figurines produced in England in the 18th and 19th centuries.
The set of seventeen pieces constitutes an extended narrative that oscillates between naivety and coming-of-age novel, following the figure of the Devil, this artist’s doppelgänger, on his journey towards absolution. A theme that Cave identifies with all his creations, whether musical or plastic, tending to engage the power of “forgiveness” through the recreation of beauty, which for him carries a moral virtue of redemption.
An equilibrium that could find its reflection in the multitude of references found in this universe of fragility and freedom, of precious and frivolous lust. While the artist spontaneously evokes Dante Alighieri’s “Inferno” and Anglo-Saxon literature, from William Blake to Marlowe, in this context comes immediatly to mind this legendary Devil figure who asked Robert Johnson (or Tommy Johnson according to different versions) for his soul in exchange of an unparalleled melodic virtuosity.
Retracing the dreamed existence of the Devil inside an analogical display of Leonardo da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” (within which a new guest has mischievously slipped in), Cave definitely links him more to life than to death and pays his own tribute to this demon that we may have more to learn than to fear.
Discover the exhibition :
Nick Cave, The Devil — A life at Xavier Hufkens Gallery in Brussels from April 5th to May 11th, 2024
