Nick Cave discusses his exhibition, The Devil — A Life (5 April—11 May 2024), with the artistic director of S.M.A.K., Philippe Van Cauteren.

“I think the Devil gave me a kind of disguise. Even though I didn’t really know at the time of making them, it was ultimately a way of coming to certain realisations about things happening in my life. So, it was never me, but it was in the end very much so.”

'The Devil — A Life' (202024) by Nick Cave is a series of seventeen glazed ceramic figurines that tells the cradletograve story of the Devil. More everyman than fearsome Antichrist, he is an allegorical character who experiences the vicissitudes of life in a very human way. Presented in Belgium for the first time, this narrative work is a visual expression of the artist’s abiding interest in religion as a catalyst for a deeper and more creative approach to life.

Nick Cave (b. 1957, Victoria, Australia) is a singer, songwriter, poet, lyricist, author, screenwriter and composer. Born in Warracknabeal in rural Victoria, he was drawn to the arts from an early age. Cave studied painting at the Caulfield Institute of Technology (Monash University, Melbourne) in 1976 before abandoning his studies to pursue music, relocating to Berlin and London in the 1980s. He rose to prominence fronting The Birthday Party (197383) before forming his current band, Nick Cave and The Bad Seeds, in 1984. Cave’s first major body of visual work, The Devil — A Life (202024), was born out of his recent interest in ceramics and was shown in the exhibition We at the Sara Hildén Art Museum in Finland (202223), together with work by Thomas Houseago and Brad Pitt.

More on the exhibition: https://www.xavierhufkens.com/exhibit...