For another project, a collaboration with Yamaha, Cole reconfigured 75 recycled guitars into sculptural works for “No Strings,” his 2022 solo show at Alexander and Bonin in New York. Well received, it led to another solo show of musical-instrument sculptures, “Lyrical Reconstructions,” held earlier this year at Haley Gallery in the Country Music Hall of Fame and Museum, in Nashville.

This recent, music-related work has kept Cole’s interest. When asked about what’s next, he says, “What’s next, in terms of an object? I don't look for objects. I wait for them to find me. But every object I’ve worked with, I’m never really finished with it.”

Willie Cole’s work is in the collections of the Met and Museum of Modern Art, both in New York, and has been on view in countless solo and group exhibitions at museums, galleries, and academic institutions such as the Radcliffe Institute for Advanced Study at Harvard University. He has received numerous public and private commissions for his work, including a recent outdoor installation on New York’s Upper East Side mounted for the Fund for Park Avenue and the New York City Parks Department of Parks and Recreation. For more information, visit williecole.com.

Diana McClure is a writer and photographer based in New York City. Her essays, reviews and profiles have appeared in Art Basel magazine, Art21, Cultured, catalogs, monographs, and other publications.

A version of this article appears in the Fall/Winter 2024-25 Visual Arts Journal.

Features

Read about the artist and SVA alumnus who creates “the way nature does” in this article from the fall/winter 2024–25 “Visual Arts Journal.”