Gropius Master Artist Exhibition: Willie Cole
January 29 - March 20, 2005

Willie Cole's The Elegba Principle, consists of 72 old painted doors, installed in groups of four that pivot when pushed. Each door has a word on the front, and the viewer can select their path through the maze of doors, pushing on the door of their choice, until they reach the end.

Willie Cole, The Elegba Principle, 1995. Doors, vinyl letters, metal, and lawn jockey. Image courtesy Alexander and Bonin, New York, originally commissioned by Capp Street Project, San Francisco. This exhibit comes to HMA this January.

A lawn jockey, symbolizing Elegba, also known as Eshu-Elegara in Yoruba mythology, greets visitors to the installation. In 2001, The Elegba Principle was shown at The Bronx Museum of the Arts, New York, in a one-person exhibition titled Game Show: Installations and Sculptures by Willie Cole. In a publication accompanying that show, Willie Cole was interviewed by Bronx Museum Senior Curator Marysol Nieves, and makes the following statements about The Elegba Principle: "Elegba is the gatekeeper, the messenger; in Rome he's Mercury, in Catholicism he's Saint Michael. He also shares symbols with Jesus Christ and Saint Peter. The Elegba Principle is a symbolic interpretation of Elegba as the presenter of choices. The door or doorway is a symbol. The act of making choices is what he compels us to do."

The Elegba Principle was originally commissioned by Capp Street Project, San Francisco, California, and besides the Bronx Museum, was exhibited in 2002 in The Richard A. and Rissa W. Grossman Gallery, Lafayette College, Easton, Pennsylvania.

Cole's training in art was for the most part, traditional, studying media arts, a combination of graphic design with photography and video, at Boston University School of Fine Arts, the School of Visual Arts, New York and the Arts Students League in New York City. Cole was exposed to African art as a child and also studied it in high school and college. He cites the influences of Haitian-Hispanic artist Jean-Michael Basquiat and writings on comparative mythology and world religion by Joseph Campbell.

Cole has been the recipient of numerous awards including The Augustus Saint-Gaudens Memorial Fellowship; Joan Mitchell Foundation Award; The Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Grant; and a Rutgers Center for Innovative Printmaking Fellowship. He has been artist-in-residence at The Studio Museum, Harlem, New York; The Contemporary, Baltimore, Maryland; Pilchuck Glass School, Seattle, Washington; Capp Street Project, San Francisco, California; and the John Michael Kohler Arts Center, Sheboygan, Wisconsin. His work has been exhibited across the United States, in Europe, Japan, and South America, and has been acquired by every major museum in the United States. Willie Cole lives and works in Mine Hill, New Jersey.

The Walter Gropius Master Artist Series is funded through the generosity of the Estate of Roxanna Y. Booth, who wished to assist in the development of an art education program in accordance with the proposals of Walter Gropius.

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