Friendship and recovery are as important as art. In his first public art exhibition at the Sara Hildén Art Museum in Tampere, Finland, entitled "WE", the international artist Thomas Houseago presents his sculptures and paintings along with a series of Nick Cave pottery and Brad Pitt sculptures.
Cave and Pitt are already renowned in their respective fields of music and film, but this is the first time ever that they exhibit their works made during an ongoing dialogue with Houseago.
WE-Houseago, interior. Photo © Jussi Koivunen
For Houseago, creativity is fundamental, common to all people and flows into each of us. For this exhibition, the artist has given a radical response to the invitation for the exhibition at the Sara Hildén Art Museum. Including the artwork of his creative collaborators, he introduces the concept of WE, recontextualizing the concept of original creation to challenge the idea of the artist as a solitary individual and celebrate a more collectivist approach.
From left to right: Thomas_Houseago, Headshot, photo © Amanda Demme; Brad Pitt, Headshot, Photo © Guy Aroch; Nick Cave, Headshot, Photo © Megan Cullen.
WE-Houseago, interior. Photo © Jussi Koivunen
The sculptural processes that led to the work of each artist here, in different ways represent stages of becoming, transformation and transfiguration over time. In the work of Nick Cave this transformation is more literally conveyed via a narrative series of glazed ceramic figurines depicting the life of the Devil in 17 stations, from innocence through experience into confrontation of our mortality. The Devil – A Life is Cave’s first major body of visual work. It includes 17 individual pieces ranging between 15 and 50cm tall, each hand-crafted, painted and glazed by Cave in England, between 2020 and 2022. Aesthetically the series nods to the artist’s interest in Victorian Staffordshire Flatback figurines, of which he is a collector. Cave was assisted with the series by Corin Johnson.
From left to right: 'Devil as Child' and 'Devil Rides to War' from the series The Devil – A Life, 2020-2022. Glazed ceramic. Courtesy Nick Cave. Photo: Prudence Cuming Associates.
Also presented in public for the first time, a range of sculptural works by Brad Pitt includes – amongst other works – a molded plaster panel depicting a gunfight narrative scene, cast using multiple impressions of the human body, as well as a series of plinth-mounted, house shaped sculptures molded in clear silicone that each have been shot with a different gauge of ammunition, revealing its trajectory and freeze framing the destructive motion. Another house structure – Pitt’s first ever sculpture, entitled House A Go Go (2017) – is a 46cm tall composite of timber off-cuts crudely.
WE-Brad Pitt, interior. © Photo Jussi Koivunen. Sara Hilden Art Museum.
WE-Brad Pitt, interior. © Photo Jussi Koivunen. Sara Hilden Art Museum
"Our mutual misery became comic..and out of this misery came a flame of joy in my life. I always wanted to be a sculptor; I’d always wanted to try it." – says Pitt of the events that led the trio together.
WE-Brad Pitt, interior. © Photo Jussi Koivunen. Sara Hilden Art Museum.
"I’m very happy and proud that Thomas Houseago decided to bring WE to Tampere. It is also exciting to get to experience a new and different artistic side of Nick Cave and Brad Pitt. WE delivers a strong message of working together, creating something new and a sense of community that is compatible with Tampere, as the city is known for its capacity for change and making bold decisions together. The message of doing together and relying on each other is very powerful in these turbulent times", says Anna-Kaisa Ikonen, Mayor of Tampere.
Nick Cave, Thomas Houseago and Brad Pitt. Photo © Jussi Koivunen
THOMAS HOUSEAGO – WE
18.9.2022 - 15.1.2023
SARA HILDÉN ART MUSEUM
Courtesy of Sara Hildén Art Museum
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