Soundsuit on view for first time in 10 years

A seemingly haphazard assemblage of crocheted hot pads, noisemakers, and vintage toys is supported by a mannequin in Soundsuit by Nick Cave. Cave is perhaps best known for his series of wearable sculptures that merge fantasy, nostalgia, and whimsy with the artist’s social consciousness. 

Soundsuit is on view in the Museum’s East Building contemporary galleries for the first time since it was acquired in 2015, following the artist’s Currents 109 exhibition. A Missouri native, Cave’s 2014–15 Currents exhibition featured then-new works, including the Soundsuit series, a video work, and shimmering circular tondo. A visual artist and dancer, his oeuvre spans the realms of sculpture, fashion, installation, and performance. 

Soundsuits—which are composed of an array of flea market and thrift-store finds along with varied fibers like yarn, hair, and twigs—are named for the audible rustling and rattling that these wildly mixed materials create when the sculptures are worn and performed in.  

SLAM’s Soundsuit is unique because the artist worked on it in St. Louis in preparation for the Currents exhibition more than a decade ago. The structure attached to the back of this Soundsuit—a figure made of a child’s clothes hanger with a head and two sweaters sewn together at the bottom seam—was added to the Soundsuit after it arrived in St. Louis. According to Cave this figure hanging loosely from the back of the Soundsuit represents a “spirit” or “shadow,” or a “second skin”. 

While admired as singular works of art, the Soundsuits were created for performance in multisensory spectacles complete with dance, music, and a community of audience participants. Though the accumulated matter of discarded toys and kitsch suggests a critique on consumerism, the kaleidoscopic and tactile qualities of Cave’s meticulously crafted works convey a dazzling vibrancy that both implicates and invites.  

Cave created the first Soundsuit in 1992 in response to the beating of Rodney King by Los Angeles police officers. He once referred to the extravagant costume-sculptures as “body armor” that masks a person’s identity, transcending preconceptions of race, class, and gender. 

In a Museum of Modern Art audio guide, Cave discussed the outrage he felt after the LA police officers were acquitted of assault charges in the King case. He explained that he asked himself what it felt like to be discarded or dismissed as a Black man.  

“I happened to be in the park one day and looked down on the ground and there was this twig. And I proceeded to collect all of these twigs. For some reason I found myself going back to my studio, building a sculpture. The moment I put it on and started to move, it made sound, and so that’s how Soundsuit came about. And sound at that moment was my call for protest. It was a way of being heard.” 

SLAM’s Soundsuit is among more than 40 works from the Museum’s collection of postwar and contemporary art on view through fall 2026 in East Building galleries typically reserved for ticketed exhibitions.