Brad Pitt Makes Surprise Debut as a Sculptor

Brad Pitt made a surprise debut at the Lakeside Art Museum in Finland as a sculptor to disclose his first ever public art exhibition.

The actor unveiled his sculptures while appearing alongside Australian musician Nick Cave and British sculptor Thomas Houseago, an appearance that took the Nordic country by surprise.

The 58-year-old actor revealed the sculptures on Saturday as part of a more extensive exhibition by Thomas Houseago in conjunction with a ceramic series by Nick Cave.

“For Nick and I this is a new world and our first entry,” Brad Pitt told Finnish broadcasters during the opening ceremony of the exhibition. “It just feels right.”

Brad Pitt’s nine works in the show include a molded plaster panel “depicting a gunfight” and a series of house-shaped silicone sculptures. Each has been shot with a different gauge of ammunition.

“To me, it’s about self-reflection,” he said. “It’s about where I have gotten it wrong in my relationships,” and “where [I have] mis-stepped” or “where [I am] complicit,” Pitt said at the opening.

“For me, it was born out of ownership of what I call a radical inventory of self, getting really brutally honest with me and taking account of those I may have hurt, moments I have just gotten wrong,” he added.

A spokesperson at the Sara Hildén Art Museum which is located in Finland’s third-largest city of Tampere said this is the first time the “largely self-taught” US star presented his sculptures to the public.

Pitt began sculpting after divorce from Angelina Jolie

Brad Pitt began sculpting after his divorce from Angelina Jolie, spending up to fifteen hours a day practicing pottery in Houseago’s Los Angeles studio in 2017.

In the August 2022 GQ issue, Pitt said that he regarded his pursuit of ceramics not as art but as a “solo, very quiet, very tactile kind of sport.”

“In that sense, this is exciting and wonderful,” Chief Curator Sarianne Soikkonen at Sara Hildén Art Museum told reporters after being astonished by Brad Pitt’s successful pursuit. Houseago’s decision to include his friends in his exhibition was shaped by the pandemic and “events in Houseago’s personal life,” she added.

Pitt’s unexpected visit surprised the Nordic country, as his involvement in the exhibition had not previously been announced.

Apart from hosting Pitt’s sculptures for the first time, the art show at the Lakeside Art Museum is Houseago’s exhibition debut in the Nordic countries and Cave’s first exhibition of ceramics.

Before pursuing music, Nick Cave studied painting at the Caulfield Institute of Technology in Melbourne and created seventeen hand-painted ceramic figurines depicting “the life of the Devil in 17 stations.”

This speaks to the musician’s interest in Victorian Staffordshire Flatback figurines of which he is a collector.