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WILLIE COLE
(American, born 1955) Willie Cole makes artworks that are rooted in both African art traditions and spirituality and African-American history and culture. Using items found in his home and neighborhood, he transforms the mundane and everyday into objects that either reinterpret African cultural traditions, make direct historical references, or eloquently address topical political issues. This sculpture is based on a type of headdress called a tji wara, used in agricultural fertility rites by the Bambara people of Mali, West Africa. Willie Cole has created a modern urban version of the tji wara from discarded bicycle parts. The sweeping curve of the antelope’s graceful neck is made from two sections of a bicycle wheel, while the chrome handlebars serve as elongated ears. The bright yellow tubing of the main frame and fork of the bike form the body, head, and horns of the animal. Willie Cole’s Speedster tji wara is both elegant and whimsical; a homage and a joke. On one hand, it evokes the dignity and power of its African precursor but on the other, the playful and inventive use of materials makes us laugh. With references to sources in West African art, as well as connections to the innovations of early modern sculpture, this assemblage links artistic traditions from the past with the present. But more importantly, by making urban found-object sculptures related to powerful African ritual objects, Cole invites consideration of the relationship between the lives and beliefs of the Bambara people in Mali to those of bike-riding, American city-dwellers. Willie Cole is also a composer and a musician. A former member of the avant-garde jazz band Full Mirage, he now works as a solo artist under the name blackgomez. - Jennifer Bayles, Educator for Special Projects |