Cady Noland facts for kids
Quick facts for kids
Cady Noland
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| Born | 1956 (age 68–69) Washington, D.C., US
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| Education | Sarah Lawrence College |
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Notable work
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Cady Noland (born 1956) is an American artist known for her unique sculptures and installations. She often uses everyday objects she finds, or images she takes from other places, to create her art. Her work explores ideas about American society, like the idea of the "American Dream" not always coming true, how famous people are seen, and the role of violence in our culture.
Many of her artworks change the space in a gallery, using things like fences or metal poles to guide or even block how people move around. She also uses lots of pictures from newspapers and magazines, often showing famous people, criminals, or public figures involved in big news stories. Cady Noland has shown her art in important exhibitions around the world, like the Venice Biennale and Documenta. After showing a lot of art in the 1980s and 1990s, she took a break for almost 20 years. But she started showing new work again in the late 2010s. Many art experts say her work has had a big impact on other artists, especially how she arranges objects in her large, sometimes messy-looking, installations.
She is also known for having disagreements with museums and art collectors about how her art is handled. Sometimes, she has asked for her artworks to be removed from shows if she felt they were damaged or changed too much. She also prefers to stay out of the public eye and has only allowed a few photos of herself to be shared. A major exhibition of her work is currently on view at Glenstone in Potomac, Maryland, until February 23, 2025.
Contents
Early Life and Art Education
Cady Noland was born in 1956 in Washington, D.C. Her father, Kenneth Noland, was a famous painter known for his "color field" art, which uses large areas of flat color. Her mother, Cornelia Langer, was also an artist.
Cady grew up in New York. She sometimes visited her father's home in Vermont. She went to Sarah Lawrence College, where she studied sociology. She later said this subject influenced her art. Cady mentioned that growing up with an artist father helped her understand the art world from a young age. She said, "Dealers were already demystified for me." She also described Washington, D.C., her hometown, as "a city of façade," meaning it had a public face that might hide what was truly underneath.
Artistic Journey and Career
1980s: Starting Out as an Artist
After moving to New York, Cady Noland first showed her art in 1981. By 1983, she began making art using "found objects." These are everyday items that artists use in their work instead of traditional art supplies. One of her early pieces was Total Institution (1984). It was a sculpture made from a phone, a toilet seat, and a rubber chicken, all hanging from a rack.
In 1987, she showed several found object artworks at a gallery called Nature Morte. One piece, Shuttle, featured shiny car parts on an old, rusty cart. The cart was attached to a railing, making it look like it could move but was trapped. Another work, Mirror Device, had a mirror with a bright orange flare gun and handcuffs hanging from a metal bar.
Also in 1987, Noland gave a special talk called "Towards a Metalanguage of Evil." In this talk, she shared her research into how some successful American men behave in ways that can be harmful to society.
In 1988, Cady Noland had her first solo art show at White Columns gallery in New York. She used medical items like IV bags and walkers, and industrial materials like rubber mats. She also included a silk screen print of a pistol. She even put a metal bar across the doorway, making visitors duck to enter. One journalist described the show as a mix of a "Social Security office, a police station and a hospital." The exhibition was very popular, and soon Noland was invited to show her art in many important shows around the world.
In 1989, Noland had another solo show in New York. Many of her works focused on the assassination of Abraham Lincoln. She showed Our American Cousin, a metal pen filled with empty beer cans, walkers, handcuffs, and a barbecue grill. This work was named after the play Lincoln was watching when he was assassinated. Another piece, The American Trip, combined an American flag with a pirate flag. Noland also used metal bars to block parts of the gallery, controlling where visitors could go.
In October 1989, Noland created This Piece Has No Title Yet in Pittsburgh. This famous artwork is a room-sized installation with over 1,000 six-packs of Budweiser beer stacked behind metal scaffolding. American flags, handcuffs, and other items were scattered around. Noland said the beer cans were like a "flag" because of their colors and showed how things are mass-produced and consumed.
In December 1989, Noland had a show in Milan, Italy. She filled the gallery with objects like beer cans, walkers, and a gas mask. The largest work, Deep Social Space, included an American flag, saddles, a barbecue grill, and motor oil containers, all arranged between metal bars. She also showed silk screen prints of Patty Hearst, a famous kidnapping victim. Noland also debuted Oozewald, a metal cut-out of Lee Harvey Oswald, who assassinated John F. Kennedy. Noland cut holes in the image and put an American flag in Oswald's mouth. Again, she used metal bars to guide visitors through the gallery.
Noland also wrote an essay called "Towards a Metalanguage of Evil." She later said this essay was about criticizing "successful" men whose goals might excuse bad behavior.
1990s: Becoming Internationally Known
In May 1990, Cady Noland's work was shown at the 44th Venice Biennale, a very important international art exhibition. She displayed Deep Social Space and several silk screen prints of Oswald, Hearst, and cowboys. Critics noted the sad and thoughtful feeling of her art.
In July 1990, Noland had a solo show in Los Angeles called New West-Old West. It featured a log cabin facade, a staircase leading to a wall, and an old western chuckwagon. She also included cut-out images of cowboys and silk screen prints about Mary Todd Lincoln and Colt guns. On the floor, she placed raw wood, trash, empty beer cans, and flags. Noland even asked the gallery staff to wear cowboy outfits, which she rented for the show. One critic called the exhibition "a wild ride through the junked landscape of America."
Noland was careful about who bought her art. For her Los Angeles show, buyers had to sign a contract saying she would be involved in any future sale of the work. In 1992, she even created a contract that required 15% of future sale profits to go to a homelessness prevention charity.
In 1991, Noland participated in the Whitney Biennial, another major art exhibition in the United States. She installed This Piece Has No Title Yet and more silk screen works of Oswald and Hearst. Her installation caused a lot of discussion among critics. Some praised her as a star of the show, while others found her work confusing.
In February 1992, Noland created a special installation at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (MOCA). She attached blurry copies of images to the walls, placed paint buckets around, and used chain-link fences and steel blockades. She also left scuff marks and drill holes on the gallery walls.
Noland was chosen to exhibit at Documenta 9 in June 1992 in Germany. She created a 3D version of her essay "Towards a Metalanguage of Evil." Passages from the essay were printed on boards placed on the ground and leaning against walls in an underground parking garage. She also added a section called "The Bonsai Effect," which criticized American excess and waste. She surrounded the installation with cinder blocks, oil, a car, and a van turned on its side. The exhibition's co-director said Noland's choice to use a parking garage was "quite shocking."
In 1993, Noland had a show at the Dallas Museum of Art. She made silk screen works on shiny metal surfaces, which she called "funhouse mirrors." She also asked the museum to provide wheelchairs for all visitors. Noland said, "The wheelchairs allowed you to move if you wanted to, you were not trapped."
For a solo exhibition in 1994 in New York, Noland created four sculptures that looked like combinations of a pillory and stocks. These were old devices used to punish people in public. Viewers could even lock themselves in them. Noland believed stocks were the first type of public sculpture in early America. She also showed Publyck Sculpture, which had aluminum-covered wooden beams with three tires hanging like a swing set. This was inspired by a tire swing found at the hiding place of cult leader Charles Manson. She also made silk screen works using images and texts from newspapers about public figures involved in scandals, like Thomas Eagleton and Martha Mitchell. One critic called the exhibition "a walk-in scrapbook of various crimes, misdemeanors and scandals." Noland said she wasn't interested in the specific people, but how the media focused on them.
In 1995, Noland's work was part of an exhibition at the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. She showed silk screen works of figures from public scandals and Publyck Sculpture. She also exhibited her largest stocks sculpture, Tower of Terror (1993-1994), which was made of aluminum and had holes for several people.
In 1996, Noland had a solo exhibition in Connecticut. She showed silk screen works on metal, featuring images of public figures like Squeaky Fromme and Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis. She also installed metal bleachers for visitors to sit on, like at a sporting event. This made viewers feel like they were watching a public spectacle. She also included a tire swing sculpture, My Amusement, and a stocks sculpture called Sham Rage.
In 1999, Noland showed new work in a group exhibition in New York. She presented Stand-In for a Stand-In, a version of her stocks sculptures made from cardboard and wood, covered in silver paint.
Also in 1999, Noland had a show in Zurich, Switzerland. She exhibited new sculptures made with A-frames, which she used as barricades. She also showed a large cardboard tube covered with black-and-white logos. She used a chain-link fence to block off parts of the gallery, making them unreachable.
2000s: Taking a Break from the Art World
After a group exhibition in 2000, Cady Noland mostly stopped showing new work or being publicly involved in the art world for over ten years. In the 2000 exhibition, she installed a new A-frame barricade sculpture that almost completely blocked the entrance to the gallery. She even asked the gallery to get rid of it by putting the A-frames on the street until they disappeared.
In 2003, her work The Big Slide (1989) was shown at the 50th Venice Biennale. The same year, a gallery tried to include her work in a show, but she asked for it to be removed. In 2004, she wrote an essay about artist Andy Warhol, whose work she admired.
Because Noland was absent from the art world, some galleries tried to put on shows of her work without her permission. For example, in 2006, a gallery called Triple Candie made copies of her work by other artists. Art critics did not like this, calling it "an aesthetic act of karaoke."
2010s: Art Disputes and a Big Exhibition
In 2012, an auction house removed one of Noland's artworks, Cowboys Milking (1990), from a sale. Noland felt the work was too damaged to be considered her original art. The owner of the artwork later sued Noland, but the case was dismissed.
Around this time, galleries showing Noland's work without her direct involvement started putting up special signs. These signs explained that Noland had not approved the exhibition. For example, one sign said Noland "did not select the artwork being displayed" and "in no way endorses" the arrangement.
In 2013, a famous art dealer, Larry Gagosian, tried to organize a show of Noland's work. Noland was not interested in having an unauthorized show. She told an interviewer that dealing with unapproved exhibitions and art restoration was "a full-time thing" that took away from her time to create new art.
In 2015, an art collector sued to return Noland's sculpture Log Cabin (1990) after buying it for $1.4 million. He claimed Noland had said the work was no longer hers because it had been heavily restored. The original logs had decayed after being outside for 10 years, and new logs were used to replace them. Noland believed she should have been consulted about this. She felt the restored piece was like a new, unauthorized copy. Her lawsuit was later dismissed, with courts deciding her rights had not been violated.
In 2017, Noland agreed to participate in an exhibition called Kinetics of Violence: Alexander Calder + Cady Noland. She showed Corral Gates (1989), which were gates for livestock decorated with saddles and bullets, and Gibbet (1993-1994), a stocks sculpture covered with an American flag.
After almost 20 years of little public activity, Noland had her first museum exhibition in 2018 in Germany. The museum director convinced Noland to participate. Noland, who has a fear of flying, couldn't visit the museum. So, the director traveled to New York every three weeks for a year to plan the show with her. Noland's art was displayed throughout the museum, even in hallways and high on walls. The exhibition was very successful and praised by critics.
In 2019, Noland also participated in a group exhibition in an empty bank at Washington's Watergate complex. She showed a chain-link fence sculpture called Institutional Field (1991), which was placed flat on the gallery floor.
2020s: Showing New Art Again
In 2021, Cady Noland showed new work in New York for the first time in over twenty years. Her exhibition, Cady Noland: THE CLIP-ON METHOD, featured new A-frame barricade sculptures and chain-link fence sculptures. One fence blocked the gallery's only window. She also covered the floor with a gray carpet and showed silk screen prints from the 1990s. These prints showed descriptions from police training manuals about violent policing techniques. Critics noticed a strong chemical smell from the new carpet. The exhibition also came with a book documenting many of Noland's works and writings.
Noland presented new work again in 2023 at a solo exhibition in New York. This was a decade after she had refused a show with the same gallery owner. The exhibition included new untitled works made from filing cabinets, clear tables, beer cans, bullets, police badges, and fake grenades. Some small objects were placed inside clear acrylic cubes. There was also tape on the gallery floor, which made the installation look like a crime scene. The entire exhibition was bought by the private museum Glenstone.
In 2024, Glenstone announced a survey of Noland's work, created "in collaboration with the artist." The exhibition opened in October 2024 and will be on view until February 2025. It includes works from Glenstone's collection from all parts of Noland's career. Noland also installed new objects around her recent work, such as industrial plastic pallets and a metal platform with an Amazon warehouse barcode. One critic called this exhibition, along with her other new shows, her "comeback tour."
Impact and Legacy
Many art experts, historians, and artists say Cady Noland has had a big impact on modern art since the 1990s. One critic, Roberta Smith, said Noland helped define a style for installation artists in the 1990s, using "junk and juxtaposition" – meaning devalued objects placed in unexpected ways. Another critic, Jerry Saltz, called Noland "the crucial link" between art of the late 1980s and much of what came after.
In 2007, New York magazine called Noland "The most radical artist of the eighties." They said her work "predicted a hundred other artists." Many artists are seen as following in Noland's style, and some have even said she inspired their work. A professor named Bill Arning said his students "shero worship her" because she is so strong in her decisions and can say no to fame and money.
Personal Life
Cady Noland has not shared much public information about her early life or personal life. There are only two known public photos of her as an adult. In one, taken at Documenta in 1992, she is covering her face with her hands. When asked for photos for publications, she has sometimes sent pictures of herself as a child instead of recent ones.
Art Market
In 2011, Cady Noland's artwork Oozewald (1989), a silk screen print of Lee Harvey Oswald, sold for $6.6 million. This set a record at the time for the highest price ever paid for an artwork by a living woman. In May 2015, her red silk screen on aluminum, Bluewald (1989), also showing Oswald, sold for $9.8 million. This set a new auction record for her work.
Exhibition History
Cady Noland has had many solo exhibitions in the United States and other countries. She had many shows in the late 1980s and early 1990s, then stopped exhibiting for almost 20 years. She started showing art again in the 2020s.
Some of her important solo exhibitions include:
- White Room: Cady Noland (1988), White Columns, New York
- New West-Old West (1990), Luhring Augustine Hetzler, Los Angeles
- Cady Noland (1994), Paula Cooper Gallery, New York
- Cady Noland (2018-2019), Museum für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt (her first big museum show)
- Cady Noland: THE CLIP-ON METHOD (2021), Galerie Buchholz, New York (her first show of new work in the U.S. in over twenty years)
- Cady Noland (2023), Gagosian Gallery, New York
Noland has also been part of many important group exhibitions, including:
- The 44th and 50th Venice Biennale (1990, 2003)
- Whitney Biennial (1991)
- Documenta 9 (1992)
Notable Works in Public Collections
- The American Trip (1988), Museum of Modern Art, New York
- The Big Slide (1989), Art Institute of Chicago
- Celebrity Trash Spill (1989), Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein, Vaduz
- Deep Social Space (1989), Museum Brandhorst, Munich
- Oozewald (1989), Glenstone, Potomac, Maryland; and Museum of Contemporary Art, Antwerp
- Tanya as a Bandit (1989), Museum Brandhorst, Munich; Museum of Modern Art, New York; and Whitney Museum, New York
- This Piece Has No Title Yet (1989), Rubell Museum, Miami/Washington, D.C.
- Bluewald (1989-1990), Wadsworth Atheneum, Hartford, Connecticut
- Sham Death (1993-1994), The Broad, Los Angeles
- Publyck Sculpture (1994), Glenstone, Potomac, Maryland
- 4 in One Sculpture (1998), Hessel Museum of Art, Annandale-on-Hudson, New York
- Untitled (2008), Walker Art Center, Minneapolis
Images for kids
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Noland at Documenta in Kassel in 1992
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Shuttle (1987) at Glenstone.
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Our American Cousin (1989) at Glenstone.
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The American Trip (1988) at the Museum of Modern Art.
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This Piece Has No Title Yet (1989) at the Rubell Museum.
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Oozewald (1989) at Glenstone.
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Deep Social Space (1989) at the Museum Brandhorst.
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View of Noland's installation "Towards a Metalanguage of Evil" at Documenta 9 in 1992.
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Publyck Sculpture (1994) at Glenstone.
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Tower of Terror (1993-1994) at Glenstone.
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Two untitled works (both 2023) installed at Noland's solo exhibition at Gagosian Gallery.
