Nick Cave :: Soundsuits

Using found materials like twigs, buttons, old sequined clothes and broken screen doors, the artist Nick Cave (as opposed to the musician Nick Cave) constructs what he calls Soundsuits — wondrous costumes that confound even him. “Are they an African ceremonial thing? Tibetan? Asian?” questioned Mr. Cave, whose new show of Soundsuits is on view at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts in San Francisco. The answer is all of the above, with a little George Clinton, drag queen, medieval knight and Wall-E thrown in.

“It’s a new hybrid,” said Mr. Cave, who also is chairman of the fashion department at the Art Institute of Chicago. “A whole new identity formed from other people’s junk.” And if the strange and beautiful structures evoke a sense of fear — well, that’s the point. “It’s what makes them so powerful,” he said.