“Art can be both intellectually rigorous and conceptually accessible without compromising either value—I think it comes closest to its purpose when it is.”
Dave Cole was raised on his family’s farm in New Hampshire, and grew up working in his grandfathers blacksmith shop. As a sculptor, Cole has become known for his large-scale work and his unconventional uses of industrial machines and materials. His installation work especially is known for its ability to successfully engage diverse audiences with conceptually challenging contemporary art.
Cole has exhibited nationally and internationally including Museum shows at The Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Museum of Arts And Design (New York) The Museum of Fine Arts (Boston), MASS MoCA, The DeCordova Sculpture Park and Museum; The Aldrich Museum, The Norwegian National Museum, The Haifa Museum of Art and The National Museum of the Netherlands.
Cole’s work is included in both public and private collections internationally, including the permanent collections of the Smithsonian American Art Museum, The Museum of Fine Arts Boston, and Brown University.
Dave Cole is currently self-represented. He lives and works in Hudson, NY
Statement
When people ask me what my work is about, or what it is exactly that I am trying to say, or even if I consider my work to be political, I usually say something like: “It’s a poem, not an essay.” There are themes; there is no thesis. This is mostly due to the nature of my process. My life is an ongoing investigation of ideas and materials, tools and techniques, yet the ultimate idea always arrives spontaneously.
The idea for the form of the object itself—a flag made from a terrazzo of bullets or a flag sewn from lead—arrives intact and complete. Practically, what this means is I read a lot and have a lot of intense conversations and I buy tools and I experiment with materials, and then I have my good ideas as I am getting out of the shower. Figuring exactly why I think that something is a good idea is necessarily a process of excavation after the fact.
Dave Cole
Hudson NY
October 1, 2020
All works (c) Dave Cole 2021
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