This is a review. The author is responsible for the opinions in the text.
Exhibition
Nick Cave: “The Devil. One Life”
Kulturhuset, Stockholm Shown until May 31st
It’s beautiful, dark and funny. Yes, the encounter with Nick Cave’s seventeen figures in the Kulturhuset’s exhibition “The Devil. A Life” lives up to all expectations.
If you enjoy Cave’s regular activities as a musician, songwriter and sometimes writer, you can easily identify with the series of small, finely modeled ceramic objects that tell a great story about Hin’s Cave, from birth to death and subsequent forgiveness.
The very presentation of the sculptures, which aesthetically resemble the decorative Victorian Staffordshire figures that served as Cave’s inspiration, tends toward high notes. A podium along a long wall supports the objects, while the visitor is invited to sit on a sofa on the other side of the room.
From there the figures are visible Not very good, it’s better to get close to each one, but the idea is of course to emphasize the usual placement of the models on a mantelpiece. At the same time, the large, sparse room appears reverent in a slightly overly obvious way, as is often the case with exhibitions featuring stars from fields other than fine art.
It’s rarely very successful – even when their work has its points, the whole thing rarely has the rigor of a professional artist (think Ulf Lundell, Bob Dylan, Dregen and others). The notorious perfectionist and extremely self-confident Cave is very aware of the problem. In several interviews, he emphasizes that the sudden desire for sound that arose during the pandemic does not make him an artist.
However, the execution shows that he is one of the exceptions. Cave has obviously managed to surround himself with the necessary expertise and the seventeen luminous objects are largely flawless. Delicate, detailed and a little sweet, just like the models.
But instead of pastoral With cheesy scenes, it is a slightly shocking story about the devil as a substitute for humans. He grows up, falls in love, goes to war, loses himself in the myth of himself, kills his first-born child, suffers regret, grows old and allows himself to be killed. In one of the pieces he also wears the same black suit as Cave, and like everything the artist has done since the loss of his youngest son Arthur in 2015, the work is about meaning, guilt and forgiveness.
For fans, there is also an appendix in the form of a small library with hundreds of Cave’s favorite books in a scenography that is clearly reminiscent of the artist’s album cover. Of course it’s fun to see that, in addition to the expected things like Southern Gothic, the Bible and Yeats, he also likes Strindberg’s novels. But it’s overpriced. Cave’s lovable Belsebub gets along well on his own.
Read more: Nick Cave’s devil figures are unpacked at Kulturhuset
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