Salva Mubarak Senior Features Writer

Along with ‘actor’, ‘producer’, and ‘person who looks good in a skirt’, Brad Pitt is now adding another prefix to his name. The World War Z actor is now a legitimate artist.

Pitt has collaborated with British artist Thomas Houseago and Australian musician Nick Cave on an art exhibition titled WE, where the trio have showcased their respective works.

Hosted by the Sara Hildén Art Museum in Tampere, Finland, WE displays sculptures by Pitt and Houseago and a series of hand-painted ceramics by Cave.

For his first-ever art exhibition, Pitt has chosen nine sculptures, including a moulded plaster panel depicting a narrative of a gunfight, a large bronze structure, miniature houses made out of silicone, and another house sculpture made out of timber blocks.

To the visitors who were attending the exhibition’s opening, Pitt’s involvement came as a pleasant shock and surprise as it was not revealed beforehand.

“I’m very happy and proud that Thomas Houseago decided to bring WE to Tampere,” said Anna-Kaisa Ikonen, Mayor of Tampere, “It is also exciting to get to experience a new and different artistic side of Nick Cave and Brad Pitt. WE delivers a strong message of working together, creating something new and a sense of community that is compatible with Tampere, as the city is known for its capacity for change and making bold decisions together. The message of doing together and relying on each other is very powerful in these turbulent times.”

On his art world debut, the actor said, “To me, it’s about self-reflection. It’s about where I have gotten it wrong in my relationships, where have I misstepped, and where am I complicit. 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.”

Previously Pitt has spoken about how pottery helped him find inner peace, especially during the tumultuous divorce from Angelina Jolie.

Now the actor is ready to showcase his works to the rest of the world, along with Houseago and Cave. His involvement in the project further drives home the spirit of collaboration and unity that Houseago wanted to convey through the exhibition.

In his own words, the exhibition is an “open-ended concept that encourages new ways to think about art-making and the role of the solitary artist, which are less about ideas born exclusively to a single author.” The artist revealed that with Pitt and Cave’s involvement, the concept of ‘art’ has become more fluid and the exhibition is now open to more interpretations and involvement by people from all walks of life.

Thomas Houseago’s WE with Nick Cave and Brad Pitt is on display at the Sara Hildén Art Museum in Tampere, Finland, until January 15, 2023.