1. Willie Cole's work uses contexts of postmodern eclecticism, and combines references and appropriation from African and African-American imagery.
11 Facts About Willie Cole
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Willie Cole has used Dada's readymades and Surrealism's transformed objects, as well as icons of American pop culture or African and Asian masks.
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In 1989, Willie Cole garnered attention in the art world with works using the steam iron as a motif.
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Willie Cole imprinted iron scorch marks on a variety of media, showing not only their wide-ranging decorative potential but to reference Willie Cole's African-American heritage.
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Willie Cole 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.
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Willie 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.
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Willie Cole's work is included in the Afrofuturist Period Room exhibition Before Yesterday We Could Fly at the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
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Willie Cole was born in 1955 in Somerville, New Jersey.
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Willie Cole later moved to Newark, New Jersey, where he found a passion for the field of arts.
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Willie Cole 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.
11.
In 1978, Willie Cole 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.