Cole is best known for assembling and transforming ordinary domestic and used objects such as irons, ironing boards, high-heeled shoes, hair dryers, bicycle parts, wooden matches, lawn jockeys, and other discarded appliances and hardware, into imaginative and powerful works of art and installations.
"The objects that I use I see as them finding me, more so than me finding them and looking for an object. I see an object and suddenly I recognize what I can do with the object. So in that sense there is an energy or spirit connection to the object. I am exploring the possibilities of these objects. [...] I say that I can make anything out of everything and everything out of anything. I challenge myself to do that. Sometimes it takes longer than I’d like which is why I work in series as I try to master the thing. I made art out of irons for 15 years before I switched to bicycles. I do shoes steady now since 2005 but it’s all the same thing to me. It’s a different object on our level of everyday perception but once you see it as a particle the possibilities are endless."[1]
In 1989, Cole garnered attention in the art world with works using the steam iron as a motif. Cole imprinted iron scorch marks on a variety of media, showing not only their wide-ranging decorative potential but also to reference Cole’s African-American heritage.[2] He used the marks to suggest the transport and branding of slaves, the domestic role of black women, and ties to Ghanaian cloth design and Yoruba gods.[3]
Through the repetitive use of single objects in multiples, Cole’s assembled sculptures acquire a transcending and renewed metaphorical meaning, or become a critique of our consumer culture. Cole’s work is generally discussed in the context of postmoderneclecticism, combining references and appropriation ranging from African and African-American imagery, to Dada’s readymades and Surrealism’s transformed objects, and icons of American pop culture or African and Asian masks, into highly original and witty assemblages.[4] Some of Cole’s interactive installations also draw on simple game board structures that include the element of chance while physically engaging the viewer.[5]
His "Anne Klein With a Baby in Transit," from 2009, uses discarded high-heeled shoes to depict a mother and child. The well-worn black shoes combine to recall traditional African sculptures. It was a gift from the Brenden Mann Foundation to the Minneapolis Institute of Arts.[6]
2017, "Walker Street Summer," Alexander and Bonin, New York
2015, "Surrealism: The Conjured Life," MCA Chicago, Chicago
2012, "Afro: Black Identity in America and Brazil," Tamarind Institute, Albuquerque, [16]
2011, "Reconfiguring an African Icon: Odes to the Mask by Modern and Contemporary Artists from Three Continents,"The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY[17]
Life
Early life
Willie Cole was born in 1955 in Somerville, New Jersey. He later moved to Newark, New Jersey, where he found a passion for the field of arts. He says, “I think I was an artist in a previous life. When I was 3 years old, my mom found me drawing in the kitchen, and since then, my family always said I was an artist. I went along with it. I enjoyed it.”[18] Cole later took classes at the Newark Museum.[19] After attending the museum for lessons, he was accepted to the Arts High School of Newark.[20]
In 1978, Cole found work as a graphic designer for the Queens County Borough Hall[21] as part of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act's employment of artists.[22] Further pursuing his passion, he later progressed and hosted his first major gallery show, located at Franklin Furnace Gallery in New York City,[23] in 1989. In 1990, he participated as the Artist-In-Residence at the Studio Museum,[24] located in Harlem, New York.
Willie Cole is the recipient of many awards. In 1991, he received The Penny McCall Foundation Grant. In 1995, he received the Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant. In 1996, he received a Joan Mitchell Foundation Award, which annually supports 15 US-based artists working in painting and sculpture, providing financial support, skill development, and community building.[25] In 2000, Cole was artist-in-residence at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center Arts/ Industry Program in Sheboygan, Wisconsin. In 2002, he received the Augustus Saint-Gaudens Memorial Fellowship, an award presented to an emerging artist practicing in the United States. In 2006, he received the David C. Driskell Prize, the first national award to honor and celebrate contributions to the field of African-American art and art history, established by the High Museum of Art in Atlanta, Georgia.[26]
Cole is represented by Alexander and Bonin Gallery[27] in New York; and by Guido Maus, beta pictoris gallery / Maus Contemporary[28] in Birmingham, AL.
In 2023, Cole's work With a Heart of Gold, was acquired by the Pérez Art Museum Miami through the institution's Fund for Black Art program.[29][30]
^Anxious Objects: Willie Cole's Favorite Brands By Smith, Patterson, Leslie King-Hammond, Lowery Stokes Sims. Published 2006. Montclair Art Museum Publn.
