The Cleveland Museum of Art
Collection Online as of April 26, 2024
Man Spirit Mask: Mask
1999
Location: not on view
Did You Know?
The steam iron is a personal symbol for this artist and it appears in many of his works.Description
Cole created a dialogue between blacks’ ancestral home in Africa and their forced resettlement in America using his self-portrait and a favorite item, the steam iron. In Man, the first panel of this triptych, a photograph of Cole’s face is covered with the embossed pattern of the steam holes of a Proctor Silex iron, a reference to the traditional tribal practice of skin scarification and branding for social identification. In Mask the iron resembles a face and is superimposed atop an inverted image of Cole’s visage; in tribal ritual a mask contains the spirit while the persona of the mask hides the wearer. In Spirit and Mask, irons resemble African tribal war shields and mimic the shape of slave ships as seen from above. Irons and ironing boards are also reminders that generations of African American women have labored as domestics.- Artlens Exhibition 2019. The Cleveland Museum of Art, Cleveland, OH (organizer).The Cleveland Museum of Art (1/26/2014 - 5/18/2014); "Our Stories: African American Prints and Drawings"
- {{cite web|title=Man Spirit Mask: Mask|url=false|author=Willie Cole, Co-published by RCIPP and Alexander & Bonin Publishing, New York, NY|year=1999|access-date=26 April 2024|publisher=Cleveland Museum of Art}}
Source URL:
https://www.clevelandart.org/art/2000.75.c