Willie Cole

Willie Cole (born 1955 in Somerville, New Jersey) is a contemporary American sculptor, printer, and conceptual and visual artist.

His work uses contexts of postmodern eclecticism, and combines references and appropriation from African and African-American imagery.

He also has used Dada’s readymades and Surrealism’s transformed objects, as well as icons of American pop culture or African and Asian masks.

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.

He attended the Boston University School of Fine Arts, received his Bachelor of Fine Arts degree from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 1976, and continued his studies at the Art Students League of New York from 1976 to 1979.

In 1978, he found work as a graphic designer for the Queens County Borough Hall as part of the Comprehensive Employment and Training Act's employment of artists.

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 his Cole’s African-American heritage.

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.

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 postmodern eclecticism, 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.

Some of Cole’s interactive installations also draw on simple game board structures that include the element of chance while physically engaging the viewer.

Further pursuing his passion, Willie later progressed and hosted his first major gallery show, located at Franklin Furnace Gallery in New York City, in 1989.

In 1990 he participated as the Artist-In-Residence, In the Studio Museum, located in Harlem, New York.

Willie Cole is the recipient of many awards, including the 2006 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.

Cole is represented by Alexander and Bonin Gallery in New York; and by Guido Maus, beta pictoris gallery / Maus Contemporary 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.

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.

Cole's work is included in the Afrofuturist Period Room exhibition Before Yesterday We Could Fly at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.

Willie Cole, a native of Somerville, New Jersey, later moved to Newark, New Jersey, where he found a passion for the field of arts.

He later took classes at the Newark Museum.

After attending the museum for lessons he was accepted to the Arts High School of Newark.