Image: Smithsonian American Art Museum, Washington, D.C ; RON BLUNT STUDIO
The Smithsonian American Art Museum will host a free craft project inspired by Nick Cave’s exhibition ‘Nick Cave: Mammoth’ during Washington, D.C.’s citywide Art All Night celebration on September 12. The program will take place from 6 to 9 p.m. at the museum’s G Street steps, with registration encouraged.
The event will offer visitors a hands-on activity connected to Cave’s immersive installation, which is on view at the Smithsonian American Art Museum from February 13, 2026, through January 3, 2027. The museum describes Art All Night as a citywide celebration of creativity, culture and community. The craft project will be located at the museum’s G Street entrance rather than presented as a separate exhibition venue.
‘Nick Cave: Mammoth’ transforms the museum’s galleries into an environment populated by crafted hides and bones of mammoths, a video projection showing the long-dead animals coming to life, and hundreds of altered found objects. The objects, ranging from vintage tools to a collection of Cave’s grandmother’s thimbles, are displayed like paleontological specimens on a large light table.
The exhibition extends Cave’s longstanding interest in the relationship between sculpture, performance, fashion, history and identity. The artist is internationally known for his ‘Soundsuits,’ exuberant sculptural garments originally created in response to racialized police violence. In ‘Mammoth,’ the museum says, Cave takes a broader and more personal approach, drawing on his family history in rural Chariton County, Missouri, his relationship with its landscape and the sources of his creativity.
The installation also reflects Cave’s interest in ordinary and overlooked materials. By presenting transformed everyday objects alongside imagined traces of prehistoric animals, the exhibition considers how people assign value and meaning to the world around them. Its themes include connections between people and their environments, changing landscapes, loss and the possibilities of imagination.
‘Nick Cave: Mammoth’ is organized by Sarah Newman, the James Dicke Curator of Contemporary Art, with support from Anne Hyland, curatorial associate. The exhibition is organized by the Smithsonian American Art Museum and has received major and generous support from a group of institutional and individual donors, including support from the Fisher Arts Impact Fund.
The Smithsonian American Art Museum, located at 8th and G Streets NW, is open daily from 11:30 a.m. to 7 p.m. Admission to the museum and the Art All Night program is free. The exhibition remains on view through January 3, 2027.
