Strategic Interplay: African Art and Imagery in Black and White explores connections between African art and the ancient game of chess. The two fields of strategic endeavor have intertwined, inspired, and influenced each other in ways both overt and indirect for nearly one and half millennia.

Strategic Interplay: African Art and Imagery in Black and White is organized by the Toledo Museum of Art and curated by Lanisa Kitchiner, Ph.D., Senior Manager of Interpretation and Curator of African Art at the Toledo Museum of Art; and Wendy Grossman, Ph.D., an independent art historian and curator.

This solo exhibition of work by Willie Cole, who was an Arts/Industry resident in the Kohler Co. Pottery in 2000, features newly commissioned sculptures alongside a selection of works spanning over three decades.

Cole visualizes the reality that domestic spaces are often tangled with histories of enslaved labor. He uses the visual vocabulary of the domestic sphere—shoes, tools, furniture, for example—to bring forward the grief and intimacy that linger within private spaces.

By using craft and household objects in his artworks, Cole spreads awareness of women’s and enslaved peoples’ labor that has been ignored or under recognized and is integral to the history of the United States. These reflective works are Cole’s initiative to complicate labor histories and lack of visual representations in the art canon.

Home Assembly, installed at the John Michael Kohler Arts Center highlights Cole’s refiguring of familiar and frequently discarded objects to confront and demand attention from his audience. His assemblages and prints convey intricate histories and messages, demonstrating the complexities and the commonalities shared in the cultivation of homes and the lives they shelter. Cole frequently uses the iron —burn marks, the ironing board, and the iron itself—as parts of human figures, as protective shields, as the shape of ships that transported enslaved Africans to the Americas, and to commemorate the work of women.

The chandelier sculptures on view allude to the community investment involved in constructing a home. When creating these, Cole often works with specific neighborhoods to collect discarded plastic bottles, resulting in community connections and cleaner streets.

Home Assembly honors Cole’s impact on the fields of labor and methodical craft, which are at the core of the Arts/ Industry program.

Everyday Objects Become ‘Extra’ in New Exploratorium Exhibit

The Exploratorium, the 55-year-old San Francisco institution full of frenetic energy, hands-on science and roving gangs of ecstatic children, might not seem like a place for visual art. And it’s true this museum doesn’t contain the sort of white-walled, hushed gallery spaces you find in certain cultural institutions.

But what the Exploratorium does provide in terms of a viewing environment is perhaps more immediate and compelling: art that is accessible to all ages, and finds guests in the midst of other discoveries to broaden their understanding of what art is.

ExtraOrdinary!, the museum’s newest exhibition of seven artists and collectives, meets all of the above criteria. Tied together by bright pink signage and lighting across several zones of the museum, this is a show of artwork made from everyday materials. The artists have taken cotton balls, wooden blocks, Lego bricks, burned-out lightbulbs and so much yarn, and turned them into sculptures, installations and interactive artworks.

‘ExtraOrdinary!’ in on view at the Exploratorium (Pier 15, San Francisco) through Sept. 8, 2024.

For the last 12 years BravinLee Editions has been producing limited editioned, hand-knotted rugs designed by artists. The Golden Thread will include editions by Wangechi Mutu, Jonas Wood, Louise Bourgeois and will be debuting its newest rug edition, Original Sin by Willie Cole.

The exhibition The Golden Thread shines a light on a group of exemplary artists who have made of the radical use of textiles their frequent or dedicated métier. Hailing from different parts of the U.S. and beyond, their wildly varied artworks occupy four floors of a landmark 18th century warehouse previously used to store, among other period wares, bails of cotton and bolts of fabric arriving and departing New York’s South Street Seaport. Repurposed by the exhibition’s organizers, Karin Bravin and John Lee—longtime New York dealers and champions of textile art—the building’s 10,000 square feet have been marshaled to array both discrete objects and commissioned installations.

The exhibition brings together over 60 artworks by 59 international artists and artist collectives that treat textiles as a medium perfectly tailored to our distracted and anxious times. As befits a showcase rather than an exhaustive thematic or historical survey, the artworks featured in The Golden Thread run the gamut—from foursquare pictures to three-dimensional artworks, from freestanding sculptures to editioned rugs, from hanging tapestries to immersive environments.

Curated by Karin Bravin & John Post Lee

207 Front Street (South Street Seaport)
April 25, 12-3pm / 4-8pm (Invitation only)
April 26 – May 12, 12-7pm (closed Mondays)
Free and open to the public 
Not wheelchair/stroller accessible

This February, Montclair Art Museum (MAM) will present a landmark exhibition, “Century: 100 Years of Black Art at MAM,” celebrating MAM’s collection of works by Black artists. The opening of “Century” aligns with the beginning of Black History Month, adding another layer of cultural significance to the exhibition.

With over 70 works in various mediums by 59 groundbreaking artists, “Century” is the largest and most comprehensive show of its kind at MAM. Since the 1940s, the museum has committed itself to curating and celebrating the diverse artistry of Black creators, and “Century” stands as a testament to that enduring dedication.

MAM Chief Curator Gail Stavitsky notes that “for many years, the Montclair Art Museum has been committed to the development of a permanent collection of American art that reflects this country’s rich multicultural diversity. Initiated in 1973 with the acquisition of William Edmondson’s sculpture “Po’ch Ladies (ca. 1932-41), this endeavor has gathered momentum, resulting in a major collection of work by Black artists from the late nineteenth century to the present.”

“Century” is curated by Adrienne L. Childs and Nico w.okoro and complemented by a fully illustrated catalog featuring multiple essays that offer insightful explorations of the rich historical and cultural context of Black art. The exhibition has been coordinated at MAM by Chief Curator Gail Stavitsky.

“This exhibition celebrates Black art as a dynamic force that recognizes and represents a variety of lived experiences—a force that heals, activates memory, reveals and questions histories, illuminates the present moment, and serves as a source of pure pleasure.” – Co-curators, Adrienne L. Childs and nico w.okoro

“Century” is organized around six major themes, each highlighting different concerns, visions, and practices that emerge from the rich grouping of artists:

• Black Portraiture explores the significance of Black identity and subverts reductive, often racist, portrayals of Blackness through works by artists such as Dawoud Bey, Adger Cowans, LaToya Ruby Frazier, Gordon Parks and others.

• African Diasporic Consciousness brings together objects by Willie Cole, Melvin Edwards, and other artists who work explicitly and implicitly to transmit cultural values, practices, symbols, and philosophies that have persisted and thrived across vast distances from a shared homeland. 

• Archival Memory considers the capacity of objects by Sanford Biggers, Tomashi Jackson, Todd Gray, Deborah Willis and others—constructed, found, or reimagined—to collectively document and preserve this consciousness.

• Abstraction is also explored with works by Alvin Loving, Howardena Pindell, and others who have used form and color as tools for both personal and collective expressions.

• Black Mythologies showcases how artists like Nick Cave, Lorna Simpson and Saya Woolfalk use the power of myth and spiritual expression to access histories and memories, imagine possible futures, and mine the complex contours of Black life.

• Black Joy and Leisure celebrates the construction of unapologetically Black social spaces, where radical rest and unfettered leisure are expressed without inhibition by artists such as William Edmondson, Carmen Cartiness Johnson and Faith Ringgold.

Additionally, “Century” will showcase how early photography–for instance, Van Der Zee–informs the work of later photographers like Dawoud Bey and Deana Lawson. Also featured in the show are works by Ben Jones and Janet Taylor Pickett, co-founders of MAM’s African American Cultural Committee (AACC).

“Century: 100 Years of Black Art” will run from February 9–June 23, 2024. Get more information, as well as related events supporting the exhibition, at montclairartmuseum.org.

The National Academy of Design exhibition Sites of Impermanence is an exhibition of art and architectural works by the recently elected 2023 National Academicians Alice Adams, Sanford Biggers, Wille Cole, Torkwase Dyson, Richard Gluckman, Carlos Jiménez, Mel Kendrick, and Sarah Oppenheimer.

Although disparate in their approaches to material and subject matter, the artists and architects featured in Sites of Impermanenceform a vivid cross-section of responses to urgent contemporary conditions and the underlying histories that have shaped them. From site-specific projects to sculpture, drawing, architecture, textile, and interactive installation, the selection of works in the exhibition reflects on a bounty of ideas (critical environmental challenges, the ongoing effects of slavery, the blurred lines between human and machine), to chart pathways towards transformation and liberation.

Exhibiting a broad range of art and architectural works, Sites of Impermanenceengages and unpacks a host of temporal and spatial concerns, exploring ideas of impermanence from a thoroughgoing understanding of formal interventions and the mutability of place. Artists Willie Cole and Sanford Biggers employ materials, laden with historical references, culturally and spiritually repurposing the familiar schemas and objects that recur through both their practices.. Architect Richard Gluckman expands the built environment by adapting existing structures to meet the wants of contemporary culture.

Alternatively, architect Carlos Jiménez and artist Torkwase Dyson navigate human, landscape, and urgent ecological concerns. Mel Kendrick’s sculptures invite critical observations on the nature of perceiving place and time, calling attention to how the natural world shapes our perception of place and how both nature and our perception of it change over time. Concerned with an emphasis on aspects of architecture and landscape, Alice Adams’ work deals in the layers of both architecture and the body, recognizing the “skin of architecture,” pointing to internal and external structures like mesh and webbing that undergird many architectural projects.

Sites of Impermanence calls for visitors to consider their impact within public spaces, blurring the boundaries between human, object, and architecture. Pivotal to this premise is Sarah Oppenheimer’s manipulations of architectural space, which are conceived to question our agency and the impacts of our presence in sites that are physical, architectural, and infrastructural.

Sites of Impermanence is co-curated by Sara Reisman, Chief Curator, and Natalia Viera Salgado, Associate Curator.

Opening Saturday, November 18, 2023

Opening Reception 4-7 pm | 835 W. Washington Blvd. Fl. 1

Kavi Gupta presents a solo exhibition surveying the career of acclaimed artist and perceptual engineer Willie Cole.

Cole’s aesthetic position has long been associated with upcycling: the creative reuse of materials that might otherwise be destined for the junkyard. He has made artworks out of old clothes irons, vintage shoes, plastic water bottles, and, most recently, musical instruments.

But there is much more to Cole’s art than implied by a perfunctory analysis of his materials. Unlike so many other objets trouvés artists of the present and the past, whose ideas relate more to simple accumulation, combination, or anti-art sentiment, Cole’s work possesses an underlying humanity that shows he is part of something more profound than aesthetic, or even ecological, trends.

“I feel my work has spirit,” Cole says. “I’m creating art the same way the universe does. I use multiples of single objects. I’m taking a single cell and multiplying it. I work an object to the point where I’m gonna get one beat away from the living thing, and the art tells me when it's there.”

Assembled from a multitude of plastic water bottles arranged in concentric rings, Cole’s plastic bottle chandelier Red Spirit Light cascades down upon viewers as if descending from the heavens. Its menacing, red, cabalistic form shines light on us and directs our attention upward, towards the sun.

Cole’s long-running chandelier series is about more than accumulation. It’s about transformation—familiar objects multiplied, combined, connected, forming something that transcends whatever importance the individual objects once had.

Cole’s use of old clothes irons connects to the various forms of energy associated with this common consumer product. Irons transfer heat energy to a surface in order to eliminate wrinkles. The energy instigates beauty, but if applied too long in one spot, the energy becomes an instrument of destruction, scorching and corrupting something it was supposed to make perfect.

Cole mobilizes the residual energy of irons and the burn marks they leave behind to create evidence of the human condition. In Domestic Shield XV, burn marks are arranged in the shape of a crown, testifying to the nobility of domestic labor. Meanwhile, the skewed, mask-like face of the iron in Untitled (You steam out wrinkles as you iron!) speaks to the ancient and enduring, if often anonymous, significance of such work.

Cole’s shoe sculptures transform women’s vintage, luxury shoes into forms reminiscent of African masks and figures.With My Heart in My Hands resembles a crouched, masked  figure adorned by a magnificent headdress; The Smile that Bites (TSTB) suggests a hidden entity endowed with a playful but sinister disposition; cast in bronze, the cheekily titled Woman in Heels depicts an overtly feminized figure rendered from an assemblage of high heeled shoes.

Cole’s latest project is a series of sculptures assembled from musical instruments. In summer 2023, he unveiled his latest monumental public art installation, a commission for the new Kansas City International Airport terminal. Titled Ornithology, the installation consists of 11 hanging birds made from saxophones, and one more saxophone bird positioned at ground level so passersby can get a look at it up close. The work is an homage to the famous song of the same name, first recorded by Kansas City-born jazz saxophone legend Charlie “Yardbird” Parker, aka “Bird.

Bird’s “Ornithology” is one of the most famous examples in jazz history of a contrafact, a technique where a musician lays a new melody down over a well-known existing chord progression. Contrafaction is about transforming something familiar to give people a chance to understand it in a new way. It’s a perceptual tool, and Cole’s specialty.

Whether in the form of saxophone birds, shoe sculptures, water bottle chandeliers, or iron masks, Cole’s interventions add layers of meaning to the familiar foundations we normally associate with his materials.

Recalling one of the earliest inspirations behind his desire to use multiples to instigate such novel connections between his art and the people who view it, Cole talks about the painter Georges Seurat. Seurat is credited with the invention of pointillism, a visual position in which tiny dots of color are placed next to each other to give the illusion of solid forms.

Seurat was inspired by nature. We live in a world of particles; even though we see solids, it’s an illusion. Where Seurat used multiples of a single dot of paint to achieve his effects, Cole uses multiples of a single object.

Like Seurat, Cole’s intention is to create new ways for people to see.

“Seurat was a perceptual engineer,” Cole says. “That’s also what I call myself.”

Monument is a powerful new exhibition opening to the public on November 10 that takes inspiration from Boundless, the public sculpture on Cameron Art Museum’s grounds by Stephen Hayes honoring the United States Colored Troops (USCT) and their fight for freedom,” the museum release states. “Through their work, artists Radcliffe Bailey, Sonya Clark, Willie Cole, Stephen Hayes, Juan Logan, Alison Saar, Augustus Saint-Gaudens, Kara Walker, and others create a dialogue acknowledging, questioning, and confronting the idea of commemoration in the built environment in the United States.

The event is free for CAM members, and $15 for non-members.

Saturday, September 23, 2023 to Sunday, December 17, 2023

Please, Come In… is a critical intervention of conventional museum period rooms. This exhibition features four environments--discotheques, dive bars, living rooms, and bathrooms--that blend and flow fluidly into one another. These spaces have been, and remain, havens for safety, kinship, dreaming, and loving. They evoke feelings of intimacy, interiority, and playfulness. From shag carpet and false eyelashes to fans and photographic slides, this exhibition brings together disparate objects and artworks that document and reference queer methods of assigning meaning vital to these spaces. Please, Come In… highlights the significance of these spaces and the innovators whose creative practices transformed how they are engaged and understood. 

Artists and creators included in the exhibition: David Bandy’s slide collection, Nayland Blake, Paul Cadmus, Nell Campbell, Willie Cole, Howard Finster, Les Gundel, Channing Hansen, Lyle Ashton Harris, Peter Hujar, Robert Lazzarini, Peter Meller, Keith Puccinelli, Mel Ramos, Do-Ho Suh, Marc Swanson, Andy Warhol, and performers at Finocchio’s Club in San Francisco. 

Please, Come In… is organized by the Art, Design & Architecture Museum at UC Santa Barbara and is curated by Sylvia Faichney and Graham Feyl, both UCSB History of Art & Architecture PhD students.

The University of Texas at Tyler has announced that renowned New Jersey-based artist Willie Cole is the inaugural guest speaker for the UT Tyler Department of Art and Art History Inaugural Art Lecture Series. Cole serves as curator/juror for UT Tyler’s 38th Annual International Exhibition, which is currently on display in the UT Tyler Meadows Gallery.

“Introducing the artwork and experience of an internationally renowned artist such as Willie Cole, through his service as a juror for the exhibition and this lecture, is an incredible opportunity for our students, the UT Tyler campus and greater East Texas community,” said Merrie Wright, UT Tyler professor and department chair. “The Department of Art and Art History is thrilled to have him serve as the inaugural speaker for the Art Lecture Series.”

The lecture will be 3:30 p.m. Friday, March 3, in the UT Tyler Ornelas Activity Center, located at 3402 Old Omen Road in Tyler.

He will also present a gallery talk at the exhibition’s closing reception at 6 p.m. Thursday, March 2, at the gallery, located in the UT Tyler R. Don Cowan Fine and Performing Arts Center. Cole chose 35 pieces for this exhibition out of 500 entries from national and international artists.

“At the close of the exhibition, the Department of Art and Art History will choose several works to purchase to add to their permanent collection, which will be used for educational purposes and for display around the UT Tyler campus,” said UT Tyler gallery and media coordinator Michelle Taff.

UT Tyler Meadows Gallery hours are from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday and by special appointment.

The African American Museum in Philadelphia (AAMP) has welcomed two new exhibits that will be on display at the Museum for the fall and winter seasons: “Vision & Spirit: African American Art | Works from the Bank of America Collection” and “Black Healthcare Studies: Black Students Breaking Barriers in Medicine.”

“Vision & Spirit,” which has been loaned through the Bank of America Art in our Communities program, is a collection of nearly 100 paintings, prints, drawings, photographs, and mixed media works by 48 renowned African American artists born in the nineteenth and twentieth centuries.

Curated in partnership with the Harvey B. Gantt Center for African American Arts + Culture, artists in the exhibition include Henry Clay Anderson, Chelle Barbour, Romare Bearden, Dawoud Bey, Willie Cole, Murry DePillars, Jacob Lawrence, Whitfield Lovell, Gordon Parks, Faith Ringgold, Jamel Shabazz, and James VanDerZee.

The exhibition, which spans two gallery spaces, focuses on these talented individuals’ strength and spirit as creative forces whose work continues to shape our understanding of the world. “Vision & Spirit” will be on display until February 19, 2023.

In ‘No Strings,’ Willie Cole Transforms Instruments into Abstract Animals and Figurative Sculptures

Artist Willie Cole is known for transforming discarded materials into sculptures with a tenor of interrogation. Much of his three-dimensional work revolves around found objects like high-heels, plastic bottles, or ironing boards that he turns into pieces of cultural commentary, addressing issues of mass production, historical legacies, and identity. The items tend to guide the formation of his assemblages, he says, sharing that, “the objects that I use I see as them finding me, more so than me finding them… 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.”

Cole’s solo show No Strings, which opens this April at Alexander and Bonin in New York, exemplifies this approach. The artist, who’s currently living and working in New Jersey, recovered guitars, saxophones, and pianos from Yamaha’s recycling program and through his usual alchemy, has created anthropomorphic creatures and abstracted figures from their parts: he converts hammers into tail feathers and spliced acoustic bodies into dogs and anonymous musicians. The pieces are expressive and tied to the endurance of America’s past, particularly drawing a connection between the guitar’s shape and the yokes forced on people who were enslaved.



(FRENCHTOWN, NJ) -- ArtYard presents Invisible, an exhibition featuring the work of twelve artists whose practices examine omitted histories, imperceptible forces, and unspoken narratives which render that which is apparent, misleading, or incomplete. In illuminating invisible forms of labor, unspoken emotional states, and unnoticed effects of human presence, the exhibition examines what the author Svetlana Alexievich calls “the missing history — the invisible imprint of our stay on Earth and in time.” Invisible will be on view at ArtYard from January 16 to April 10. 

ArtYard will host an opening reception for Invisible on Saturday, January 15, 2022 from 6:00pm to 8:00pm. Refreshments will be served, and attendees must wear masks and provide identification and proof of vaccination. RSVP required.

Willie Cole’s “Beauties” are portraits of five beloved women from Cole’s personal history cast as weathered ironing boards whose shapes evoke iconic maps of slave-ship holds. Cole’s work mines the meanings of quotidian domestic tools such as irons and hoses in sculpture and prints that reference African iconography and masks. His work has been acquired and exhibited by MoMA, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, Whitney Museum of American Art, Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, National Gallery of Art, Philadelphia Museum of Art, Walker Art Center, Minneapolis Institute of Arts, and numerous others. Another work of Cole’s, a chandelier constructed of water bottles, hangs over ArtYard’s theater and is part of ArtYard’s permanent collection.

History Told Slant: Seventy-seven Years of Collecting Art at MSU takes an expansive view of the collection at the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum, reveling in the great breadth of works within the collection while also confronting the dominant (and domineering) narratives that shape its contours. Taking cue from the great poet and literary figure, Emily Dickinson, who encourages us to “tell all the truth but tell it slant,” the exhibition breaks with conventions of the western art historical canon in order to acknowledge gaps and fissures within the collection. Ultimately, this effort is part of the museum’s ongoing efforts to develop a more inclusive version of the history of art—one less predicated on singular, white, Eurocentric values, favoring instead a plurality of perspectives and voices to help shape the larger narratives.

This survey exhibition results from looking at the collection through several angled lenses. In both literal and figurative ways, the slanted architecture of the Zaha Hadid-designed galleries offers an opportunity to explore shifting perspectives in how we approach and understand art history and the collecting practices that have shaped many museums across the world, including the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum. Key organizing principles that frame the exhibition include the recognition of different visual storytelling and narrative strategies from across different geographies, time periods, and cultures; investigations of how the collection came to be and the ethics of collecting, then and now; and how confronting and learning from the past can help us better determine the course ahead. The exhibition also blends global perspectives with the local with a section focused on the history of art at Michigan State University and in the mid-Michigan region.

History Told Slant thus offers a joyous and illuminating experience, asserting the collection as a source of continued study and appreciation on campus and in our community, while also providing a platform to engage conversations around social and racial justice, colonial histories of exploitation, and the role of art in spreading awareness and cultural competency throughout our communities and the world. 

History Told Slant: Seventy-seven Years of Collecting Art at MSU is organized by the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University with contributions from Senior Curator and Director of Curatorial Affairs Steven L. Bridges; SEEK Graduate Fellow Emma Creamer; former Assistant Curator Georgia Erger; former Assistant Curator Katie Greulich; and Curatorial Research and Administrative Assistants Elijah Hamilton-Wray and Thaís Wenstrom. Support for this exhibition is provided by the Alan and Rebecca Ross endowed exhibition fund. 

Original pieces from the iconic show will be on display in Comme des Garçons stores worldwide beginning November 30th.

On November 5, The Met will unveil a long-term installation, Before Yesterday We Could Fly: An Afrofuturist Period Room, that transforms a 19th-century domestic interior into a space untethered by time. Like traditional period rooms, the installation is a fabrication of a domestic space that assembles furnishings and works of art to represent a fixed moment in time. However, this new space will unsettle the very idea of a period room by embracing the African and African diasporic belief that the past, present, and future are interconnected. Powered by Afrofuturism—the inspirational, creative mode that centers Black imagination and self-determination—this speculative home is activated through vision, sound, and storytelling. Before Yesterday We Could Fly is furnished with a range of works from The Met collection—from Bamileke beadwork and 19th-century American ceramics to contemporary art and design—that foreground generations of Black creativity. The period room is significantly located at a central intersection where galleries for Early Modern Europe, Nineteenth-century Britain, and the American Wing meet—a placement that alludes to the linked colonial histories embedded in the Afrofuturist Period Room.

On view at The Met Fifth Avenue in Gallery 508

The Shadow We Create

September 10th, 2021 - January 31, 2022

The Shadow We Create raises questions about societal prescriptions, race, servitude, fear, and the consequences of not speaking through compelling works by artists Mary Bowron, Willie Cole, and Jan-Ru Wan.

The exhibition is named after Jan-Ru Wan’s stunning work The Noise We Make and The Shadow We Create, an assemblage of hundreds of rusted bells rendered silent by immersion in wax. The Beauties, Willie Cole’s full-scale prints are pulled from blackened crushed and hammered ironing boards. With titles including Bessie, Carolina, Jonny Mae and Jane, each print is named for a woman in Cole’s family. Simultaneously they reference servitude, beauty, oppression, and darkened holds of slave ships. The Shadow We Create features a haunting installation of Silent Witness, a series by Mary Bowron populated by androgynous pit-fired ceramic heads. Some are smothered in thick wax, others branded with soot from the fire of their birth, with all featureless where a mouth once was, or may still be.

The Shadow We Create addresses fear of speaking the truth amidst racial, social, political and economic unease. This exhibition asks the viewer to contemplate ways in which silence is forced and silence is broken.

Beginning 29 May, Hauser & Wirth Southampton will present ‘There’s There There,’ a group exhibition organ­ized by Rashid Johnson showcasing a diverse group of contemporary and late 20th century artists exploring the power of simple forms and gestures. Together, the works reveal the rewards of considering more closely the mundane: the routine gestures, daily detritus, and ebbs and flows of time that fill the backdrop of our lives. The exhibition invites visitors to reflect upon the pleasures and complex histories of the shapes, movements, and objects that permeate the everyday. Artists included in ‘There’s There There,’ are Jennifer Bartlett, Vija Celmins, Willie Cole, Rob Davis, Alteronce Gumby, David Hammons, Mary Heilmann, Leslie Hewitt, Sheree Hovsepian, Wolfgang Laib, Robert Longo, Richard Mayhew, Joel Shapiro, Xaviera Simmons, and John Smith.

“The idea for this show is rooted in trying to find simplicity in a complicated time. This doesn’t omit that the work has the ability to be rigorous and complicated in the way that it lives, but it does allow for a space of simple contemplation. In some respect, the things that you look at are what they are. But you also have opportunity to unpack them. The simplicity of the forms and methods divorce the objects from their inherent complexity.” —Rashid Johnson

Gallery hours: Wed – Sat: 11 am – 6 pm, Sun: 12 – 5 pm, Mon & Tue by appointment

People view the world through subjective lenses but one way to open up different perspectives is to view the arts. Boise Art Museum is presenting a new exhibition that hopes to do just that, titled The World Stage.

“The exhibition sets the stage for important and respectful dialogue related to today’s world events. The project has been in development for several years, and the artworks in this exhibition have particular relevance to the current conditions of the world,” wrote Executive Director/CEO of the Boise Art Museum Melanie Fales. “All of the artists in this exhibition are transcending boundaries in some way—either through their subject matter or medium—and are confronting stereotypes and cultural myths as well as giving voice to their lived experiences and perspectives.”

The new exhibition starts on Saturday, March 6 and goes until July 11. The World Stage includes 90 contemporary pieces of art by 37 renowned American Artists. People can expect artists of all colors, ages, and genders. The World Stage has artworks from the last 50 years including some from famous American artists like Andy Warhol, Jean-Michel Basquiat, Willie Cole, Helen Frankenthaler, Romare Bearden, Mildred Howard, Jo Feddersen, Jeff Koons, Jacob Lawrence, Hung Liu, Wendy Red Star, Robert Rauschenberg, and Kehinde Wiley. People can preview some of the art online now: boiseartmuseum.org/exhibition/the-world-stage.

“Explorations of Self: Black Portraiture from the Cochran Collection” will open at Wake Forest University’s Hanes Gallery on Sept. 21 and run through March 28. Planned programming will include artist talks, group discussions and community outreach. Details will be announced as they are finalized.

“Explorations of Self” presents the work of Emma Amos, Lorna Simpson, Willie Cole, Jack Whitten, Adrian Piper, Alma Thomas, Beverly Buchanan, Juan Logan, Howardena Pindell, Jim Alexander, Charles White, Elizabeth Catlett, Camille Billops, Romare Bearden and Jacob Lawrence, among others, of whom nearly half are women.

Due to pandemic-related restrictions, access to Hanes Gallery is currently limited to Wake Forest University students, faculty and staff. The University and the gallery will be offering online content about the exhibition. Sign up to receive notifications at hanesgallery.wfu.edu.

For those entering Nordstrom's recently reopened flagship in Manhattan, the view will look familiar save for some freshly installed artworks and installations lining the walls of the airy department store. Together they make up part of a new exhibit dedicated to celebrating and exploring the history of contemporary Black style through the lens of fashion.

Styling: Black Expression, Rebellion, and Joy Through Fashion, currently on view until October 29, is organized into three themes: style as a creative expression, a rebellion against oppression and a source of joy. It was curated by Souleo and done in partnership with Long Gallery Harlem.

“Styling” brings together works by 15 contemporary Black artists from across the African diaspora: Anthony Olubunmi Akinbola, Elan Cadiz, Willie Cole, EPPERSON, Felicia Megan Gordon, Gregory Gray, Hollis King, Beau McCall, Ruben Natal-San Miguel, Busayo Olupona, Yelaine Rodriguez, Dianne Smith, Stephen Tayo, Ricky TheJones of AfrolipglossOriginals, and Margaret Rose Vendryes.

Free admission into Styling: Black Expression, Rebellion, and Joy Through Fashion is available now at Nordstrom NYC until October 29, 2020. Visit STYLINGBLK.com to learn more. The show is also available for online view on Artsy.

In celebration of The Center for Contemporary Art’s 50th Anniversary!

“Here and Now, implies an awareness of the present, much like the name of this institution, The Center of Contemporary Art, there is a mindfulness of being contemporary. This awareness is a continuum of ideas, practices, and events that reflect what The Center for Contemporary Art has stood for these past 50 years. To paraphrase Isaac Newton, to see further we must stand on the shoulders of giants. This exhibition can only exist because of what has come before and celebrates the diverse community of artists and art that is here and now.”   – Wes Sherman, Curator

Curated by John Yau and Wes Sherman
September 11 – December 11

Virtual Opening Reception and Curator Talk via Zoom: Friday, September 11th at 6 p.m.

Artists: Chakaia Booker, Willie Cole, Chie Fueki, Evan Halter, Takuji Hamanaka, Barry Hazard, Suzanne Joelson, Judy Koo, Talia Levitt, Jessica Mensch, Phillip McConnell, Ilse Murdock, Nadia Haji Omar, William A. Ortega, Joyce Robins, Stephanie H. Shih, Francesca Strada, Tejaswini, Peter Williams

Gallery Hours
Monday – Thursday from 9:00 a.m. – 5:00 p.m.
Fridays and Saturdays by appointment only until further notice

Burnet Fine Art & Advisory will open “Fresh: A Summer Selection,” a showcase of works from artists Ellsworth Kelly, Rico Gatson, Carmen Herrera, Anish Kapoor, Willie Cole, Hans Hoffman, Teo Nguyen, Daniel Gordon, Sunday B. Morning/Andy Warhol, R. J. Kern, Jeremy Dickinson, Mike Marks, Tori Gagne, Joshua Huyser and more.

“Fresh: A Summer Selection” will open 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday, July 25, and will run through Aug. 29 at 775 Lake St. E., Wayzata.

Gallery hours are 11 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Saturday and by appointment.

As part of the Burnet’s COVID-19 preparedness plan, the gallery is limiting the number of visitors and increasing cleaning measures. Hand sanitizer will be available for visitors and the gallery is asking visitors to wear masks and do their best to keep a distance of 6 feet from staff and fellow visitors.

Artwork can also be purchased via phone or email correspondence. Curbside pickup and delivery are also available.

For more info, visit burnetart.com

More than a reflection—exploring the ways race, gender, and identity shape our sense of self

Can a self-portrait depict more than just an artist’s physical appearance? The dozens of contemporary works on paper in “Personal Space,” ranging from straightforward representations of the self to more conceptual renderings, show an expanding definition of self-portraiture.

Traditional self-portraits by major artists like Käthe Kollwitz and Jim Dine are on view here alongside experiments in the genre, such as Robert Rauschenberg’s Booster (1967), a monumental lithograph that uses X-rays of the artist’s own body.

Works by younger generations of artists serve to broaden, subvert, and reinvent the notion of self-portraiture. Willie Cole’s Man Spirit Mask (1991) uses the household iron as a symbol to suggest domestic servitude, the branding of slaves, and the shape of African masks; in an untitled lithograph by Kiki Smith (1990), Xerox transfers of the artist’s tangled hair become a Pollock-like abstraction; and Glenn Ligon’s print series Runaways (1993) mimics the tone of 19th-century broadsides that advertised runaway slaves, substituting descriptions of Ligon written by his friends to form a kind of composite self-portrait. A newly acquired highlight is Balding (2017), a set of 21 meticulously rendered drawings by SMFA graduate Cobi Moules, in which the artist— a trans man—uses extraordinary candor and humor to explore the many possibilities that await his future self. Moules is one of several local artists included in the exhibition, alongside Allan Rohan Crite, Jess Dugan, Michael Mazur, and John Wilson.

With works from the turn of the 20th century to today, “Personal Space” presents visitors with a sampling of self-portraiture’s evolution over a century, and hints at where the genre might go in the future.

The UNAM Film Library and the Poplar University Museum invite the cycle: Vogue, resistance, dance and cinema. South Gallery. Free entry limited to 20 participants.

Registration at http://bit.ly/tallervogue

Prior registration: vogue.chopo@gmail.com

Reclamation is a strategic framework. Reclamation is an action (to reclaim) and a goal (to have reclaimed). Reclamation has present and future potential but its very being implies a history: “RE-” claim, a reassertion of autonomy, a process of claiming something back. Reclamation can be a physical process related to objects or land, a financial process, or a social process.

A “Claim” is a right, a being of ownership, or a statement; to “reclaim” is to take back the right, take back ownership, or restate. Reclamation is land being returned to its original state, such as a landfill returning to forest. Reclamation is taking a pejorative phrase, and taking ownership of it, taking claim of its power. Reclamation is financial redress. Reclamation is taking back political representation in a republic whose leaders fail to serve the people. Reclamation is repairing broken objects and returning their dignity through purpose. Reclamation is returning to the old gods, reviving old traditions.

“To Reclaim” is an exhibition featuring six artists whose work “reclaims” in some form, be it reclamation of material, reclamation of a symbol, reclamation of history, or reclamation of conceptual power.

Willie Cole, Genevieve Gaignard, Deborah Kass, Mary Sibande, and Stan Squirewell. 

50 GOLBORNE at: 1-54 Contemporary African Art Fair 2019, London, booth B21.

Presenting: Larry Amponsah (Ghana), Ranti Bam (UK/Nigeria), Willie Cole (USA), Safaa Erruas (Morocco), and Wura-Natasha Ogunji (USA/ Nigeria).

Alexander and Bonin is pleased to announceBella Figura, an exhibition of new work by Willie Cole. Cole’s assemblages of found objects, such as irons, bicycles, water bottles, andwomen’s shoes, offer a multivalent commentary on gender, consumerism, sexuality and African-American identity.

Reception: Friday, May 3rd, 6:00 pm - 8:00 pm