Nick Cave’s “Mammoth” Unveils Rediscovered Histories (Full Transcript)

[00:00:00] Speaker 1: These creatures are just one piece of Nick Cave's mammoth. A monumental new exhibition and the Smithsonian American Art Museum's largest ever commissioned by a single artist. This vibrant immersive world uses thousands of objects to both recall his own lineage and explore American history.

[00:00:22] Speaker 2: It was such a feat to pull this all together. I'm witnessing a time in history where history is being erased, but yet history is being revealed at the same time. And so when I think about mammoth, I think about at one point they existed and then buried and then rediscovered. You know, what is erased becomes revealed. What is removed shows up again.

[00:00:57] Speaker 1: Cave has worked on the show intuitively, piecing everything together on site. How mammoth would appear in its entirety remained a mystery until the end, even to the artist.

[00:01:10] Speaker 2: I come from a family of makers, you know, woodworkers, seamstresses, poets, musicians, painters, performers. A thousand influences. When I think about that, it's mammoth in terms of scale. It's really about sort of creating the abundance. I know that everyone will be able to identify with something of their past.