Actor Brad Pitt and musician Nick Cave presented their works at the Sara Hildén museum in Tampere on Saturday. Pitt and Cave both seemed tense, HS art critic says.
by Sara Hildén The exhibition opening at the art museum on Sunday surprises with its list of artists.
The museum has announced in advance that it will open a sculptor Thomas Houseagon exhibition, but on Saturday the museum announced the entire list of artists in the exhibition: in addition to Houseago, the exhibition also features works by his friends, better known as actors From Brad Pitt and a musician Nick Cavelta. This is their debut as sculptors.
All three artists were present at the exhibition’s press conference on Saturday. The museum had the atmosphere of a big world when the security men walked around the museum and the assistants circled around the stars, says Helsingin Sanomat’s art critic Harri Mäcklin.
Cave I Pitt both seemed tense, says Mäcklin.
“Both said that they don’t really know what is done in the exhibition press and what should be said about the works.”
Among other things, a plaster panel depicting a shooting scene from Brad Pitt is on display, as well as house-shaped sculptures made of transparent silicone that have been shot with guns of different calibers.
The exhibition features a series of ceramic figurines from Nick Cave that depict the life of the devil. Cave has designed, painted and glazed the 17 figures in the series between 2020 and 2022.
“Cave said that performing for 10,000 people is not nearly as exciting as opening a pottery kiln,” says Mäcklin.
“At the concert, as an artist, he can control that situation, but now these works are out in the world and he cannot influence how they are received.”
Nick Cave recently performed with his band Bad Seeds in Helsinki as the headliner on the closing day of the Flow festival.
in Los Angeles working Thomas Houseago (b. 1972) is known for his large, often human-shaped sculptures, which have been seen, for example, at the Whitney Biennial in New York. In Tampere, Houseago presents its new paintings along with sculptures.
According to the museum, Houseago’s exhibition “celebrates liberation from the isolation caused by the pandemic and also personal recovery”.
Houseago has talked about the collapse in interviewsleading to the death of her abusive father in 2019, and the long therapy process that followed, in which friends like Pitt and Cave played a significant role.
Now the artist wants to emphasize the good news of collective creativity instead of individualistic artistry and share his exhibition with his friends.
“They talked about how this has been a community project for them, and how they have influenced each other’s creative processes,” says Mäcklin.
“In all of their speeches, it came out that making the sculptures has been somehow therapeutic – significantly more personal than the work that Cave and Pitt do for a living.”
Thomas Houseago: WE with Nick Cave & Brad Pitt at the Sara Hildén Art Museum in Tampere 18 September 2022–15 January 2023. Open Tue–Sun 10 a.m.–6 p.m. Tickets 14 e.