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Bookmark: https://artcollection.carleton.edu/objects-1/info/1804

Bush Burn

2002
21st century
21 1/4 in. x 13 1/2 in. (53.98 cm x 34.29 cm)

Willie Cole, American, b. 1955

Object Type: Prints

Creation Place: North America, United States

Medium and Support: lithograph on paper

Credit Line: Carleton College Art Collection, gift of Marilyn Stokstad, class of 1955

Accession Number: 2007.025

Cole works in a range of media to produce images that focus particularly on the metaphoric transformation of found objects and common subjects. His transformations can be spiritual, personal, or social in their significance and often show a highly charged critical point of view that takes on dominant economic and political structures in history and modern society. In this print, the artist responds to what he perceives as the excesses of U.S. executive authority in the post-9/11 world as embodied in the Patriot Act and the war in Iraq. The burning bush is, of course, a reference to the moment in which Moses was commanded by God to rescue the Israelites from bondage in Egypt; here, though, the visual and conceptual pun on "bush" refers both to the godlike authority claimed by President George W. Bush as well as his pronouncement of apparently unassailable laws passed down to the populace as a whole. The artist is also interested in using this religious symbol to play on the idea of Bush having a "burning" agenda that he pursues with utmost persistence. The iconic and symbolic nature of the image is reinforced through the iconographic references such as the thirteen stars signaling a foundational moment of U.S. political culture as well as the formal qualities of symmetry and clarity of color. The print also signals the artist’s interest in other kinds of transformations, given that fireùas one of the most basic of natural elementsùnot only destroys and consumes but also clears a space for future possibilities, renewed growth, and change.

Keywords Click a term to view the records with the same keyword

This object has the following keywords:

21st Century, American*, Contemporary*, lithographs*, lithography*, paper (fiber product)*, prints (visual works)*

21st Century
American - Refers to the context of or associated specifically with the modern political entity of the United States of America.
Contemporary - Refers to painting, sculpture, graphic arts, and architecture dating from the recent past and present. It differs from modern art in that the term 'contemporary art' does not carry the implication of a non-traditional style, but instead refers only to the time period in which the work was created. 'Modern' and 'contemporary' are inherently fluid terms. The term 'contemporary' is sometimes more narrowly used to refer to art from ca. 1960 or 1970 up to the present.
lithographs - Prints made using the process of lithography, which is a planographic printing process in which a design is deposited on the stone or plate with a greasy substance which will accept ink.
lithography - Planographic printing process in which a design is deposited on the stone or plate with a greasy substance and the surface is chemically treated to accept ink only in the greasy areas.
paper (fiber product) - Refers generally to all types of matted or felted sheets or webs of fiber formed and dried on a fine screen from a pulpy water suspension. The fibers may be animal, such as hair, silk or wool, or mineral, such as asbestos, or synthetic. However most paper is made from cellulosic plant fiber, such as from wood pulp, grass, cotton, linen, and straw.
prints (visual works) - Pictorial works produced by transferring images by means of a matrix such as a plate, block, or screen, using any of various printing processes. When emphasizing the individual printed image, use "impressions." Avoid the controversial expression "original prints," except in reference to discussions of the expression's use. If prints are neither "reproductive prints" nor "popular prints," use just "prints." With regard to photographs, see "photographic prints"; for types of reproductions of technical drawings and documents, see terms found under "reprographic copies."

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Bush Burn