28/09/97

Willie Cole, Alexander and Bonin, NYC - New Sculpture

Willie Cole: New Sculpture
Alexander and Bonin, New York
September 27 - November 8, 1997

Alexander and Bonin presents its inaugural exhibition at 132 Tenth Avenue (between 18th and 19th Streets) in New York.

WILLIE COLE (American, born 1955) have his first New York exhibition since 1994. Willie Cole exhibits recent sculptures which continue several of his intersets and themes. Some of these works are based on the form of an iron -- an image which he began investigationg in 1989. Willie Cole was first attracted to the iron for both its form and for its perceived embodiment of the spirit of the person who used the iron. The earliest versions, which he referred to as Household Gods and Domestic Demons, dealt with these ideas by utilizing found objects. More recently, Willie Cole has been constructing enlarged versions (i.e. an iron 600 times actual size) made from diverse materials both found (banisters, pullies) and constructed or carved (two egg 'beaters' that resemble African sculpture and which were carved out of two large sections of porch post).

Since his last New York show, Willie Cole has been an artist-in-residence at Pilchuck Glass School, Seattle; The Contemporary, Baltimore and Capp Street Project, San Francisco. His work is currently featured in the group exhibitions Biennial for Public Art, Neuberger Museum, Purchase and Performance Anxiety organized by MCA, Chicago and now on view at Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego.

Willie Cole's Sculptures are included in permanent museum collections in Chicago, Dallas, Newark, New York, Philadelphia, Saint Louis and Stanford. Simultaneous with his show at Alexander and Bonin is his first one-person exhibition in Europe at the Galerie Almine Rech, Paris.

ALEXANDER AND BONIN
132 Tenth Avenue, New York, NY 10011