How Do You Spell America? #7

Details
Title
How Do You Spell America? #7
Artist/Maker
Date
1993
Medium
Oil stick, chalk, and latex on Masonite and wood
Dimensions
49 x 96 inches
Credit
Purchase with David C. Driskell African American Art Acquisition Fund
Accession #
2007.27
On View
Currently not on view
Although his subject matter and themes have evolved, Willie Cole has consistently used allusion and metaphor in his work to manipulate household items into a combination of his personal history and collective African American history. How Do You Spell America? #7 is one of eight “blackboard” works Cole created in which he used the word “America” as an acronym for seemingly random sentences that have potent messages. Akin to the work of Glenn Ligon and Jean Michel Basquiat, Cole deploys text as art and message; like Cy Twombly and Joseph Beuys, he incorporates the blackboard as a didactic trope to underscore the elemental nature of these words.
Image Copyright
© Willie Cole
Browse Related Artwork

Dawoud Bey

Sam Doyle

Ernest Withers

Susan Worsham

Charlie Lucas

Martin Puryear

Dong Kingman

Jose Chardiet

Dawoud Bey

Horace Cort

Baga Artist, Guinea

Tom Nakashima