Christmas came early to Chelsea when two galleries, Mary Boone and Jack Shainman, put Nick Cave’s Soundsuits on display.  Cave, as his website explains, is a “trans-artist” who crafts costumes for dancers.  I didn’t know anything about him, and after seeing the suits guessed that he came from a dance background.  The costumes are majestic as displayed on mannequins in both galleries, evoking both shamanic effigies and life-size Muppets.  But they really come to life in the videos at Jack Shainman.  They’re joyous and crazy-colored, in dramatic, eccentric profiles that disguise the bodies of the dancers.  In the videos, the dancers have the freedom of animated figures.

Cave trained as a dancer at Alvin Ailey, went on to study fine arts, and now chairs the fashion department at the Art Institute in Chicago.  That fashion connection makes sense when one observes how immaculately crafted the garments are.  Some suits are covered from hood to foot with a shimmering sea of white buttons, each one set in place and stitched with scientific precision.  Other suits are covered in twigs laid in carefully staggered lengths to throw dramatic, shifting shadows.  Even a suit covered entirely in old toys and board games is assembled with an unerring sense of composition.  Each of the suits is strange and also absolutely correct.