Man, Spirit, and Mask
Man, Spirit, and Mask, Willie Cole (American, 1955) 1999
2000.75
Not on display
Cole has been using steam irons and ironing boards in works of art to pay homage to the formal qualities of traditional African sculpture and its connection with his own ancestry. He also seeks to infuse a sense of the spiritual into an overly rational world. The artist dissects steam irons and reuses the parts to build small-scale spirit figures. He also creates heraldic shields by using irons to burn decorative patterns into treated canvases that are stretched onto ironing boards and then hung on the wall. Cole's inspirations-decorated war shields and the traditional tribal practices of scarification and branding for purposes of social identification-are encompassed here. Whereas Man is embossed with the shape of an iron and Spirit was seared with an iron, the ironing board shape of Mask recalls a slave ship, seen from above. These elements symbolize the status of the many African-American women who, denied educational and social opportunities, still earn a meager living as domestic workers.
Images Copyright © the artist, their estate, and/or the Cleveland Museum of Art.
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