Travel the world

Stranger Than Kindness: The Nick Cave Exhibition

In another case of fortuitous timing, my trip coincided with the Stranger Than Kindness: The Nick Cave Exhibition being presented at Galerie de la Maison du Festival.

The exhibit was originally created for The Black Diamond of The Royal Danish Library in Copenhagen, with Cave himself the co-curator and co-designer. And it made its North American debut in Montreal this past April.

Stranger Than Kindness explores the intersection between Cave’s inner and outer worlds. It invites visitors to follow Cave’s evolution and journey as an artist over the span of 50 years: his influences and inspirations, love and loss and how it all became overarching themes in his work.

If you didn’t already know singer, songwriter, novelist, composer, screenwriter, actor and overall Renaissance Man, Nick Cave, after a visit to the exhibition, you will get a good sense of who this man is. Although I like a number of his songs, I wasn’t a hardcore fan. But after going through Stranger Than Kindness, I’m even more intrigued about him as a person and as an artist.

There are 8 thematic rooms highlighting a particular point in Cave’s life:

Childhood
Beautiful Chaos
Obsessions
Collaborations
The Office
The Eclipse
Gratitude
Shattered History

The first room features Cave’s childhood in Wangaratta and time at boarding school in Melbourne, Australia. There are framed photos of his family, Cave as a boy and teenager, a letter sent to his family while he was a boarder at Caulfield Grammar School, and a copy of Lolita by Vladimir Nabokov.

“Those early creative years were a great grabbing up of ideas – all the amazing people, the drugs, the art, all the beautiful chaos.”

The next room was way cool. Walking into Beautiful Chaos was like walking into a big-top circus tent and all around you were momentos from Cave’s time with Boys Next Door and The Birthday Party. In black shadow boxes that were spread out all over the room, there were handwritten notes, portraits and drawings (even one in blood), handwritten lyrics, flyers and concert posters, journals, photographs, postcards, limited edition singles, and love letters to Anita Lane.

“Grand gestures of the spiritual and carnal and the violent infused everything. Sex, violence and religion; you never stray far from your obsessions.”

Obsessions was dedicated to Cave’s Berlin era in the 80s, featuring a re-creation of his apartment with bunk bed. Collages and gothic art prints in gold gilt frames were hung up on the wall, while stacks of books laid on the floor. Choral music was playing.

In the big glass showcases in the middle of the room, visitors can view date-stamped handmade books, filled with drawings, thought scribbles, daguerreotype photos, religious iconography, and pin-up girls. Flea market finds including locks of hair he found were kept in boxes or pinned to the wall.

At the far end of the room was a gigantic desk with typewriters, more books, and a hand drawn map of the town Ukulore from his novel, And the Ass Saw the Angel, on a giant, black chalk board. On the wall, in frames were a photo of Cave and Deanna Bond, ‘Deanna‘ lyrics, visa application form to enter Japan, and identity paper with Cave looking like the most 80s goth.

The Collaborations room was the Bad Seeds room, a darkened space featuring 12 video screens of the band giving an oral history of Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds.

The hallway leading to the next room was lined with a floor to ceiling bookcase filled with hundreds of books from Cave’s private library. Some of the books I have read.

The Office is Stranger Than Kindness‘ largest room. And a version of Cave’s home office. If you’re a minimalist, you might not dig this. This is where it’s so evident that he is a bibliophile, archivist and an obsessive collector of things.

This is the room you’d most certainly spend the most time in.

So many things to view: piano, drum kit and other musical instruments, six feet high stacks of books, gold statue of Cave riding a bucking horse, countless notebooks, vinyl albums (David Bowie and Leonard Cohen amongst the pile), paintings, illustrations, an autographed photo of Monica Lewinsky, script for ‘Until the End of the World’ by Wim Wenders, and a life-sized polaroid of Cave and his sons, among hundreds of other items.

A couple of things gave me a chuckle:

A thanks but no thank you letter from Nick Cave to MTV to request that his nomination for Best Male Artist be withdrawn because he didn’t like the competitive nature of such award ceremonies. He considered himself to be in competition with no one.

And a letter to Gap who must have approached him to be in one of their advertising campaigns. He replied saying that he may consider wearing a pair of Gap jeans for a billion dollars, but even then he would have grave reservations.

Savage, right? And hilarious.

Among his array of personal items, I was drawn to:

Photos of Kylie Minogue, who sang with him on ‘Where the Wild Roses Grow”
Photos, collages, and artwork of PJ Harvey, with whom he had a relationship in the 90s

Both singers featured on Cave’s 9th studio album, ‘Murder Ballads’.

But I really loved the wall devoted to photos of his beautiful wife, Susie Cave (nee Bick), and their young children. She is a model, fashion designer, and creator of The Vampire’s Wife.

Just behind Cave’s desk was a white door with the words “I married my wife on the day of the eclipse” painted in black. And all that was in the darkened room when you entered was just a blown up wedding photo of Cave and his wife.

Rounding out the Stranger Than Kindness exhibition was the Hallway of Gratitude room. It’s here that Cave showcases his most cherished possessions: a letter from Leonard Cohen sent after his son, Arthur, died, a piece of Nina Simone’s chewed gum, and a bust of his hero, Elvis Presley.

And one of the very last things you come across before exiting, a portrait of Nick and Susie Cave. Above the frame picture was a rolling projection of a poem that Nick came up with, when a fan asked him to write about how much he loves Susie.

Ask him a question on his website, The Red Hand Files. He may very well answer with a thoughtful and meaningful response.

“You stand before the world and say, ‘I am here and this is who I am… But there is an influence at work. A veiled, magnetic force.”

I thoroughly enjoyed the Stranger Than Kindness exhibition. And found myself so appreciative that Cave would so open, putting his life – all the triumphs and heart-wrenching losses – on display. Every item offering insight into his creative process, but even more so, to get to the heart and show what kind of person he is.

In 1987, Cave wrote his Last Will and Testament, specifying that a ‘Nick Cave Memorial Museum’ be established and pay homage to his life. That it would be a place where people could come and look at all his collected works and ‘important shit’. This is it.