Nick Cave, an artist and chair of the fashion design department at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, will present a lecture on Thursday, April 1, at 7 p.m. in Shemin Auditorium in the Dorothea Ilgen Shaffer Art Building. The lecture, which is free and open to the public, is sponsored by the Departments of Art and Design in the School of Art and Design of Syracuse University’s College of Visual and Performing Arts (VPA).

Parking is available for $3.50 in the Booth Garage. Patrons should indicate that they are attending the lecture to receive the special rate.

Cave is serving as a visiting artist for the fiber and textile arts program in the Department of Art. His lecture will focus on his work, including his signature soundsuits.

Cave’s clothing and fiber-based sculptures, collages, installations and performances explore the use of textiles and clothing as conceptual modes of expression and pose fundamental questions about the human condition in the social and political realm. His work has been exhibited internationally, including in solo exhibitions at Studio La Città in Verona, Italy (2010); Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco; and at Jack Shainman Gallery in New York City, which represents him. His retrospective, “Nick Cave: Soundsuits,” was presented by the Chicago Cultural Center Foundation at the Chicago Cultural Center and several other venues across the country.

Among Cave’s numerous awards and fellowships is the Joan Mitchell Foundation Award (2008), the Artadia Award (2006) and the Joyce Foundation Joyce Award (2006). His work is in the public collections of the Brooklyn Museum, the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden, the Portland Art Museum and the Pennsylvania Academy of Fine Arts. He holds a bachelor of fine arts degree from the Kansas City Art Institute and a master of fine arts degree from Cranbrook Academy of Art.

For more information about the lecture, contact fiber and textile arts faculty members Olivia Robinson at orobinso@syr.edu or Mary Giehl at mgiehl@yahoo.com.

VPA is committed to the education of cultural leaders who will engage and inspire audiences through performance, visual art, design, scholarship and commentary. The college provides the tools for self-discovery and risk-taking in an environment that thrives on critical thought and action. Learn more at http://vpa.syr.edu.

Written by Erica Blust, (315) 443-5891