Willie Cole

I've just returned from Dore & Sally's morning tour of Cole's work and am jealous that I will not have the input from 282A because I cannot make that tour. Besides being visually stimulating, profound in its' unique use of found objects, I was very interested in how artwork's meaning and understanding changes when we know something about the artist's ethnicity and gender. Cole is using feminist loaded objects; the domestic iron and women's high heels. I've always vaccilated between whether I want to know about an artist's history and intent or not. Just as titles alter an art pieces contextual meaning so does an artists' autobiographical information. Is it different when we know the artist is male? Do women "own" this imagery (high heels and iron)? Can we view an iron or high heels without this baggage? Both irons and high heels have enslaved women, so the fact that African Americans have been enslaved is relevant here. Because I perceive art as a dialog rather than a monlogue, I don't think the artist, object and viewer can be seperated. I'm interested in reading other people's blogs about this exhibit and I hope all of you were inspired by Cole's work at least as much as I was.

Kim

Here is an article in ArtNews about Willie Cole
http://www.artnet.com/magazine_pre2000/features/brody/brody97-2-14.asp


Jon Yao, also found the following:

http://www.alexanderandbonin.com/artists/cole/cole.html

http://www.worcesterart.org/Exhibitions/afterburn.html

http://www.uga.edu/columns/040927/news-cole.html

http://www.huliq.com/6196/memorial-art-gallery-features-willie-cole-s-iconic-works

http://www.fryeart.org/pages/williecole.htm

Another website found by Jon with tons of links to Willie Coles Work and Information about the artist:

http://webs.wichita.edu/?u=ulrich&p=/exhibitionfolder/williecole/