AFTERBURN Willie Cole: Selected Works 1997 – 2004 November 13, 2005 – January 6, 2006 WORCESTER ART MUSEUM Speedster tji wara, 2002, bicycle parts, 188 x 38 x 56/5 cm. Antelope Headdresses (tji wara), Mali, Bamana people, 20th c., Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York, Sarah Norton wood, metal. Male, H. 92.7 cm; Museum of African Art, Goodyear Fund. Photo: Bill Orcutt, courtesy Alexander and Rhode Island School of Design, Anonymous gift. Photo: Bonin, New York Eric Gould AFTERBURN Willie Cole: Selected Works 1997 – 2004 Multi-tasking with Willie Cole the Americas. Irons and ironing boards evoke Willie Cole’s work suggests a post-modern the role of many African-American women as eclecticism—combining references, both domestic workers in other peoples’ homes. intended and serendipitous, to the appropria- Scorch marks suggest branding, and the inter- tion of African forms by modern artists, to twined histories of slavery and plantation Dada’s ready-mades and Surrealism’s trans- culture that marked early economic develop- formed objects as well as to icons of American ment in Latin America, the Caribbean and the pop culture. He invests his forms with meaning southern United States. The shape of the iron and history both personal and communal— itself suggests boats, and thus the iniquitous although he might say, he rediscovers meaning Middle Passage where so many died in their that is already present.1 Like other African- forced move from Africa. Visual puns and American artists, Cole personally has mined a verbal play characterize his work, creating the vein of imagery and significance that draws layered meanings that demand our intellectual upon Africa and the experience of Africans in multi-tasking. Or Through African(ist) Eyes2 ment of shapes and the treatment of surface. Cole’s TjiWara series alludes to headdresses Thus Worcester’s Kanaga Iron evokes the cruci- worn by Bamana men from Mali. TjiWara is the form shape and simplified facial forms of the beast that works—a mythological character and Dogon Kanaga mask in its handle. Every Dogon culture hero who taught humans to cultivate, (Mali) man historically owned and wore his enabling them to survive.3 The bicycle, linked to Kanaga mask in association with the celebra- youth and exercise, parallels the Bamana cele- tion of ancestral forces just as every American bration of strength and energy channeled into household contained an iron, wielded by its community farming activity. Emphasis on phys- owner or an employee. In both cases, changes icality in turn suggests athletic prowess and the in culture and technology have drastically dominant role, real if also a stereotype, of reduced the numbers of people within their African-Americans in sports today. Bicycle respective communities that actually use these parts suggest the ready-mades of the Dadaists items. In the iron called Chewa, the fiber and Surrealists, but they are transformed not as surfaces and shape recall the woven masks commentary on the roles of artist, academy worn by male initiates in coming-of-age cere- and gullible public, but from a delight in formal monies in Malawi. If the oversize irons evoke correspondences, design possibilities, and the work of Claes Oldenberg, they equally unusual materials. I am reminded of plastic reference African principles of representation. dolls and market paraphernalia woven into The African traditional artist has long used Nigerian dance masks. New materials mobilize symbolic proportion to tell his audience that old compositions, broadcasting the positive something is important, that it is not what it messages of modernity and creativity.4 seems to be. Though Cole’s dramatized irons involve us in a Ahead of its Time corresponds visually to consideration of African-American historical Bamana mask forms, but suggests the influ- experience, that of domestic servitude, they ence of African art on modern artists, for it is expand the reference to particular African both a “head” of its time (in Africa, masks were ethnic groups through the sculptural enhance- subtle variations on themes rather than radical Chewa 600, 1997, bamboo, wood, jute, rope, and straw, Antelope mask, Malawi, Chewa people, Cornhusks, cane arma- 101.5 x 154.9 x 76 cm, collections of Eileen Harris-Norton ture, H. 243 cm. British Museum. © Copyright The Trustees and Peter Norton, Santa Monica. Photo courtesy of of The British Museum Alexander and Bonin, New York Commemorative Scorch, scorches and poly-urethane varnish Textile (detail), “Olukun” design. Nigeria, Yoruba people, on canvas, 188 x 183 x 10.1 cm, collections Eileen Harris- Indigo dyed, starch-resist patterned cotton, c. 1970, 184 x Norton and Peter Norton, Santa Monica. Photo courtesy 167 cm. Private collection. Photo: Stephen Briggs Alexander and Bonin, New York departures from existing forms) and ahead of Star associated with safe passage along the its time in its role as a wedge in the hands of Underground Railroad. In Branded Irons Cole artists who sought to change the rules of form plays with a range of ideas, layering ideas of laid down by the French Academy. Naturally slavery, scarification, individual identity and Smooth relies upon wood, the primary medium marketing—each iron similar but separate, of African sculpture, and comments wryly on each brand identified by its sole plate as EurAmerican primitivizing stereotypes of African ethnicities might have been identified “natural” that have plagued us since the in the past by scarification marks, or each indi- 18th century. vidual by his own features. Branded Irons stands as a reminder for me of the enormous cultural Like African textiles and African-American variation in Africa, negated by a widespread quilts, Commemorative Scorch and Branded Irons and ignorant view that Africa is homogenous are seriate, repetitive in design, and cryptic in with a single culture. In the third scorched narrative. In Commemorative Scorch, Willie Cole work, Cole more randomly disperses the forms, burns iron silhouettes into quatrefoils that so they resemble a scattering of leaves, calling overlay densely packed but more lightly burned to mind traditional medicine; feathers and thus sole plate patterns, aligned so they combine birds, metaphors of arcane knowledge in and recombine into foliate and cross forms like Yoruba thought linked to medical practitioners, those associated with Olokun, god of the sea, diviners, priests and kings; or even to the found on Yoruba indigo-dyed textiles and 17th lozenge shaped bone implements of the Lega century Benin brass plaques. Memory of (Congo) used by elder members of the Benin’s greatness, its imperial expansion linked community organization (Bwami) to invoke the to the overseas trade and its dark aftermath, elephant metaphors expressive of their respon- for this part of Africa was renamed the “slave sibility.9 The title Infestation transforms the coast,” enriches and renders more subtle the image into something altogether more hostile. obvious references to African American history The swarming forms, beetle-like, suggest made by the iron and its marks. Quatrefoils inner-city cockroaches and microbial infec- recall too numerous patchwork patterns like tion, or boat-like, the maritime trade, slavery Flying Geese, Drunkard’s Path, and Evening and colonialism. Iron Figures bring to mind a panoply of African road?”11 The logic is convoluted if irrefutable— sculpture and cultures through form, stance, for Cole’s chicken (and Malcolm’s too) is the gesture and decoration. The iron parts sacrificial cock in African Yoruba and Diaspora reassembled create bodies rendered as discrete Santeria and Candomble ritual. In this context, geometric elements. Thumb through any good it is the sacrifice to Eshu-Elegba, gatekeeper of book on African art, and you will recognize the Gods, to allow prayer to proceed from the Perm Press’s shoulder blades conflated with world of the living to the spiritual world. To get breasts and her classic female gesture of to the other side is also a coded reference to the generosity made by supporting them. escape from slavery, crossing the rivers that separated slave and free states, and then the Malcolm’s Chickens III and To get to the other border, into Canada, once the free states no side make more complex and cross-cutting longer offered safe haven. Subversive spirituals references. According to Cole, Malcolm’s spoke of getting to the other side as well, Chickens are modern Trojan horses, firebombs masking the true meaning with acceptable disguised as “art,” and a sad comment on Christian content. Cole populates his giant America’s having to face the consequences of chess game with players in the form of Lawn “exporting terrorism (in various forms) around Jockeys, perennial “boys” and faithful servants, the world and, on September 11th, that terror- but for Cole, manifestations of Eshu-Elegba, an 10 ism returning home to attack the USA.” African trickster who is not what he seems to Cole explains the title of his giant game To get be. Cole uses the figure in a signifyin’ way, a to the other side, not as winning, but as answer- term referring to a black vernacular verbal ing the riddle, “Why did the chicken cross the practice that is full of wit, double meaning, and social criticism.12 Eshu himself is the ultimate To get to the other side,2001, 32 cast concrete lawn jockeys, mixed media, galvanized steel, and wood frame, 488 x 488 cm. Collection of Peter Norton, Santa Monica. Photo: Orem Slor, courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York Elegba figure (detail), Epu mask (aguru epa), Nigeria, Yoruba To get to the other side (detail),2001, 32 cast concrete lawn people, Ekiti region, Wood, black, brown, and white paint, H. jockeys, mixed media, galvanized steel, and wood frame, 488 121 cm. Fowler Museum of Cultural History, UCLA. Gift of x 488 cm.