Willie Cole Traverses ‘Mind, Body, and Soul’ in Expressive Mixed Media Assemblages

For Willie Cole, the convergence of material and concept are as important as emotional and even spiritual links to history. Whether repurposing salvaged musical instruments, creating enigmatic visages from stacked stilettos, or arranging hundreds of single-use plastic bottles across a surface, his imaginative sculptural assemblages tap into a range of global traditions, eras, and social and environmental issues.

Cole explores our associations with physical objects by removing them from the context within which we’re accustomed to encountering them. Time-honored African masking traditions and figurative sculptures made of high heels meet modern symbols of labor and culture, such as repeated ironing board motifs or a handful of saxophones that have been reimagined as a bird.

a sculptural assemblage made of leopard-print stilettos — “Tiger Lilly” (2025), repurposed shoes and wire, 19 x 18 x 13 inches

Mind, Body, and Soul, Cole’s current solo exhibition at Sargent’s Daughters, combines new works with pieces made throughout the past couple of decades. The selection emphasizes the artist’s interest in reframing and enriching everyday objects into assemblages of cultural significance.

“His practice transcends specific media or subject matter, moving fluidly across genres and iconographies to explore history, consumerism, and environmentalism,” the gallery says. In the era of fast fashion, the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, and an accelerating climate crisis, consumable and disposable objects contrast how we value our history and customs.

Mind, Body, and Soul continues through July 10 in New York. See more on the artist’s Instagram.

a sculptural assemblage made of red and silver shoes — “Fly Girl” (2016), repurposed shoes and wire, 18 x 12 x 14 inches

a sculptural assemblage made of red shoes, displayed on a wall — Alternate view of “Fly Girl”

a framed print of two women in bathing suits with sculptural masks covering their faces of assemblages of shoes — “Summer Shoes” (2025), silkscreen print, 21 x 27 inches

a sculptural assemblage resembling an African fertility figure made of stilettos, cast in bronze — “Shoonufu Female Figure” (2013), bronze, 25 x 9.5 x 13 inches

a diptych relief artwork made of hundreds of crushed single-use plastic bottles — “Survivors Series I (Wall Assemblages)” (2026) water bottles on board, 96 x 48 inches

a detail of a diptych relief artwork made of hundreds of crushed single-use plastic bottles — Detail of “Survivors Series I (Wall Assemblages)”

a sculptural assemblage made of red stilettos — “Twin Spirits” (2026), repurposed shoes and wire, 27 x 12 x 11 inchea

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