Read the growing number of enthusiastic articles about Soundsuit creator Nick Cave and you’ll soon notice most of them have something in common — at one point or another, the journalist or author has to interject that this Nick Cave isn’t the Australian gothic blues dirge icon. Cave the dancer-turned-sculptor/designer likely faces his musical namesake at every turn, but he is just one contemporary visual artist with a well-known moniker. To clarify matters, behold this illustrated breakdown.
NAME Nick Cave
FORTE Murder ballads
SIDE GIGS Writing, acting, and leading Sinnerman
CURRENT PROJECTS Dig, Lazarus, Dig!!! (Mute, 2008); a screenplay with the Leonard Cohen-ish title Death of a Ladies’ Man
QUOTE “An eye for an eye and a tooth for a tooth / And anyway I told the truth / And I’m not afraid to die.”
NAME Nick Cave
FORTE Sculpture, video, and artistic fashion with untamed imagination
SIDE GIGS Dance and choreography
CURRENT PROJECTS “Meet Me at the Center of the Earth,” at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts; a 90 Soundsuit dance performance in 2012 at Chicago’s Millennium Park
QUOTE “The arts are our salvation — the only thing that allows us to heal and also helps us dream about what will make the world a better place.”
NAME Phil Collins
FORTE Blue-eyed soul, romantic movie themes, turning prog into pop, drumming, Alamo artifact collecting, and becoming an icon of male pattern baldness
SIDE GIGS Duets with Billy Ocean, replacing Peter Gabriel in Genesis
CURRENT PROJECTS Fatherhood, greatest hits collections
QUOTE “She’s an easy lover / Before you know it you’ll be on your knees.”; “I feel so good if I just say the word / Su-su-sussudio.”