You’ve only got till March 29, so I would scoot over to the new Jack Shainman Gallery — the gallery alone is worth a peek — to see the Nick Cave show. This is a museum show in a gallery, which is lucky for those of us Downtown. No 6 train required. The show is a remarkable combination of message and craft. I would not miss it.

This post is also serving as a New Kid on the Block: The gallery took what was a very raw 20,000 square foot, two-story space in the Clock Tower Building — 108 Leonard — but on the east side, so the address is 46 Lafayette. Shainman purchased it for $18.2 million.

The space is called The Hall, and it has 29-foot ceilings, arched windows, a soaring staircase, massive columns — and I mean massive: your arms go about a quarter of the way around — and vaults left over from when the building was the New York Life Insurance Company a century ago. The building is McKim, Mead & White and was completed around 1898. See more old photos here. 

The gallery was founded in 1984 in D.C. by Jack Shainman and the late Claude Simard. They soon relocated to the East Village, then migrated to Soho and in 1997, to Chelsea. They also have a converted 30,000 square foot building in Kinderhook, NY, known as The School in addition to the new Civic Center space.

I woke up to Cave when his incredible murals were installed near the Shuttle in Times Square in 2022 (those are remarkable — and if you go to the end of the shuttle platform and walk though the double steel doors, there are even more down this obscure hallway that goes to the Bryant Park station).

His bio from Jack Shainman: Nick Cave (b. 1959, Fulton, MO; lives and works in Chicago, IL) is an artist, educator and foremost a messenger, working between the visual and performing arts through a wide range of mediums including sculpture, installation, video, sound and performance. Cave is well known for his Soundsuits, sculptural forms based on the scale of his body, initially created in direct response to the police beating of Rodney King in 1991. Soundsuits camouflage the body, masking and creating a second skin that conceals race, gender and class, forcing the viewer to look without judgment. They serve as a visual embodiment of social justice that represent both brutality and empowerment.

Throughout his practice, Cave has created spaces of memorial through combining found historical objects with contemporary dialogues on gun violence and death, underscoring the anxiety of severe trauma brought on by catastrophic loss. The figure remains central as Cave casts his own body in bronze, an extension of the performative work so critical to his oeuvre. Cave reminds us, however, that while there may be despair, there remains space for hope and renewal. From dismembered body parts stem delicate metal flowers, affirming the potential of new growth. Cave encourages a profound and compassionate analysis of violence and its effects as the path towards an ultimate metamorphosis. While Cave’s works are rooted in our current societal moment, when progress on issues of global warming, racism and gun violence (both at the hands of citizens and law enforcement) seem maddeningly stalled, he asks how we may reposition ourselves to recognize the issues, come together on a global scale, instigate change, and ultimately, heal.