Internationally acclaimed artist Nick Cave (‘82 Fiber) unveiled a new body of work, Nick Cave: Mammoth, at The Smithsonian American Art Museum. This commission from the museum is Cave’s first solo exhibition in Washington, D.C. and is the museum’s largest-ever commission by a single artist.

As Cave's most personal work yet, Mammoth draws deeply from his upbringing in Chariton County, Missouri. The installation is rooted in family history, local landscapes, and craft traditions, inspired by the quilts, tools, and clothing his farming grandparents used daily. Cave channels these memories and sources into an imaginative and transformative world. The exhibition, which merges sculpture, video, and found objects, serves as a reflection on the artist's creative impulse, prompting audiences to contemplate their bond with the natural world and the everyday items that carry personal and collective histories.

Cave has transformed a suite of galleries on the museum’s third floor into a series of immersive environments, featuring a 60-by-20-foot hand-beaded tapestry of a Missouri landscape, towering lifeguard chairs with mammoth heads, and a 700-square-foot light table of thousands of found objects. These found objects, which range from vintage tools to his grandmother's thimble collection, are arranged like paleontological specimens, with some reshaped into masks and creatures imbued with spirit.

The exhibition also includes the video Roam in an adjoining gallery, which projects the massive creatures wandering through present-day Chicago, bringing the mammoths to life. Additionally, bronze sculptures from his “Amalgams” series merge the artist's body with natural forms, and these works, displayed near antique doorstops from his grandparents’ home, collectively evoke themes of loss, renewal, and inherited memory.

Nick Cave: Mammoth will be on display at the Smithsonian American Art Museum through January 3, 2027, with free admission. Sarah Newman, the James Dicke Curator of Contemporary Art, organized the exhibition, and was supported by curatorial associate Anne Hyland.