Nick Cave

MASS

Best known for performance pieces that incorporate highly textural costumes and dance, Cave also incorporates fiber, clothing, and ritual into his sculptural work. At Island Press, Cave was able to combine his interest in fibers, found objects, assemblage, and sculpture with a social issue, here AIDS, to test the limits of experimental printmaking.

The editioned proejct, MASS, was made from used shirts that Nick Cave assembled and stitched together. The shirts were then coated and sealed with acrylic medium forming the plate which was printed from both the front and back sides, creating a triptych.

In the other project, Virus, also a triptych, the image is a bacterium associated with AIDS. The outside panels are collagraphs made with actual shirts. The central panel is an abstract collagraph with a photolithograph printed on top.

collagraph printing plate made from folded shirts, center piece of triptych

intaglio print on paper of the back of the plate of folded shirts, printed in dark brownish-black

intaglio print on paper of the front of the plate of folded shirts, printed in dark brownish-black

Intaglio printing plate from artwork, MASS, made from folded shirts. The plate itself is the center piece of triptych which was printed front and back to create the other two pieces in the triptych.

Intaglio print on paper from the back side of the plate of folded shirts. This is one of three pieces that form the triptych MASS.

Editions from this project

three large prints titled MASS made from folded shirts by artist Nick Cave on wall seen from an extreme angle

Three photolithograph and collagraph panels of black and white shapes with red shapes in the center panel