Time is itself a recycling process for Cole, whose freewheeling spirit transcends linearity in his excavations of art and music history.
- Billy Anania
Willie Cole, “Dial-a-Tune” (2022), Yamaha 3/4-size acoustic guitar parts (courtesy Alexander and Bonin, photo by Joerg Lohse)
At the entrance to Willie Cole’s No Strings, a peacock of piano keys greets visitors from the center of the room. Instead of a rainbow plume, the New Jersey artist layered black sharps and flats atop a fan of white keys, fragments of gold pedals comprising its beak and claws. While not a songbird, the piece nonetheless sets a dulcet tone throughout the gallery of Alexander and Bonin, strutting the line between listening and looking.
The exhibition is Cole’s latest foray into assemblage at the Soho mainstay. For this show, the artist partnered with Yamaha, whose upcycling program donates blemished instruments that did not pass final inspection. New acoustic guitars are split open, divided into pieces, and rearranged into bodily forms, with all proceeds from sales going toward the music department at Arts High School, Cole’s alma mater in Newark.