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Thursday 6 February

John Coleman: The Sculptor Who Whispers to Bronze

Listen to me carefully, you bunch of snobs. I’m going to tell you about John Coleman, born in 1949 in Southern California, an artist who emerged as a late phenomenon in the world of American Western art. You think you know contemporary art? Let me explain how this dyslexic autodidact disrupted the codes of traditional Western sculpture.

While the art world is often obsessed with deconstruction and gratuitous provocation, Coleman chose a different path: one of memorial reconstruction and mythological narration. His first theme is the exploration of Native American collective memory, which he approaches not as a distant observer but as a cultural mediator. Through his monumental bronzes, he doesn’t merely represent; he embodies. Take “Addih-Hiddisch, Hidatsa Chief”, created in 2004. It’s not just a three-dimensional reproduction of a Native American chief; it’s an attempt to materialize the immaterial, a physical translation of a people’s spirit. Coleman aligns here with Walter Benjamin’s theories on the mechanical reproduction of art but with a contemporary twist: he uses reproduction (bronze) to preserve not the aura of the work but the aura of an entire culture.

This unique approach to cultural memory is also evident in his series inspired by the works of Karl Bodmer and George Catlin. By appropriating these historical references, Coleman doesn’t merely cite them—he reinvents them through a contemporary lens. His three-dimensional interpretation of historical documents transcends simple reproduction to create what Roland Barthes would call a new “cultural text”, where each fold of bronze becomes a signifier loaded with meaning.

Look also at the work titled “The Game of Arrows”. This piece isn’t just a representation of a Mandan ritual—it’s a meditation on cultural transmission itself. Here, Coleman echoes Claude Lévi-Strauss’s theories on the social function of myth but reverses the paradigm: instead of analyzing myth to understand society, he recreates society to preserve myth. It’s brilliant, it’s bold, and above all, it’s necessary.

The meticulous research underpinning each of his works isn’t simply academic. Take his sculpture “The Greeter, Black Moccasin Meeting Lewis & Clark”, installed at Green-Wood Cemetery in Brooklyn. This 80%-life-size work is not just a historical commemoration. It represents a moment of critical cultural contact but, more importantly, interrogates our contemporary way of commemorating and understanding these historical moments. Here, Coleman uses public space not as a mere support for memory but as a place for dialogue between past and present.

The second theme in Coleman’s work is his conception of sculpture as a form of silent music. I know it sounds absurd, but hear me out. In “Visions of Change”, a major work housed at the Tucson Museum of Art, Coleman orchestrates a true visual symphony where bison and horses create rhythm, human figures mark strong beats, and negative spaces become musical rests. This is where his autodidactic training becomes a strength: unbound by academic conventions, he freely fuses disciplines. Susan Sontag spoke of the need to create an erotics of art rather than a hermeneutics—Coleman goes further, creating a synesthesia of art.

This musical approach to sculpture is especially evident in his treatment of space. Coleman doesn’t just create objects in space; he composes with space itself. His sculptures create what philosopher Gaston Bachelard would call “poetic spaces”, places where matter and void dance together to create meaning. This spatial choreography is particularly evident in his large-scale works, where viewers are invited to physically participate in this silent dance.

What I admire about Coleman is how he transforms limitations into innovations. His dyslexia pushed him to develop an exclusively visual reading of the world, thus creating a unique sculptural language. When he says, “I’m fascinated by how music can convey a mood without words”, he’s not being poetic for the sake of it—he’s defining a new artistic grammar. This grammar revolves around what I’d call a “syntax of silence”, where every form, every texture, every negative space plays the role of a word in a visual sentence.

His unconventional journey—starting to sculpt only in his forties—allowed him to escape the academic dogmas that often stifle creativity. Free from the constraints of traditional artistic education, he developed an intuitive yet sophisticated approach to form. This freedom is evident in his treatment of surfaces, creating textures that invite both touch and sight. There’s something here reminiscent of Maurice Merleau-Ponty’s theories on the phenomenology of perception: Coleman’s art engages the entire body, not just the eye.

Unlike some artists who simply recycle clichés about the American West, Coleman creates a complex dialogue between past and present. His works are not windows to the past but bidirectional temporal portals. Take “The Rainmaker”, a monumental five-meter-tall sculpture—it doesn’t merely illustrate an ancient ritual; it questions our contemporary relationship to spirituality and nature. This work embodies what art historian Aby Warburg called “Nachleben”, or the survival of ancient forms in contemporary art.

His treatment of Native American history goes far beyond simple ethnographic documentation. Coleman understands that history is not a series of frozen events but a living process of negotiation between past and present. His sculptures act as “sites of memory”, to use Pierre Nora’s concept, spaces where collective memory crystallizes and continually transforms.

The easy critique would be to say Coleman romanticizes Native American history. But this is precisely where he traps us: his works are not historical representations; they are meditations on how we constantly construct and reconstruct our collective history. As Jacques Rancière theorized, art is less about representation and more about the “distribution of the sensible”—and Coleman literally redefines how we perceive and share the history of the American West.

His approach to American mythology is particularly sophisticated. Rather than merely illustrating myths, Coleman creates what Joseph Campbell might call “living myths”, narratives that continue to evolve and generate meaning in a contemporary context. His sculptures thus become convergence points where ancient and modern mythologies meet and transform each other.

To be frank, Coleman isn’t a revolutionary artist aiming to dismantle artistic conventions. He is something rarer, and arguably more valuable: an innovator who expands the possibilities of the medium while remaining rooted in tradition. His work proves that contemporary figurative art can be just as intellectually stimulating as any trendy conceptual installation.

This innovation is particularly evident in his technique. His mastery of bronze is not merely technical—it is conceptual. Coleman understands that bronze is not just a material but a medium with its own history and cultural implications. He uses the physical properties of bronze—its durability, its ability to capture intricate detail, its changing patina—as elements of his artistic vocabulary.

What makes his work especially relevant today is his treatment of cultural appropriation. Instead of merely representing Native American culture, he creates a space for intercultural dialogue. His sculptures do not claim to speak for Native Americans but to speak with them, establishing what Homi Bhabha might call a “third space” of cultural negotiation.

His ability to navigate different cultural traditions without resorting to superficial cultural appropriation is remarkable. Coleman openly acknowledges his position as an outsider to Native American culture, but he uses this position as a starting point for respectful dialogue rather than a limitation. This approach echoes Edward Said’s theories on Orientalism, but Coleman avoids the pitfalls of exoticization by maintaining a delicate balance between admiration and critical distance.

Coleman’s artistic trajectory is a lesson in humility for the contemporary art world. To begin a sculpting career after the age of 40, to overcome dyslexia, and to construct a new visual language—all without the backing of the traditional art system—is nothing short of extraordinary. His success is not just a personal triumph but a challenge to our preconceptions of what makes a “real artist”.

His studio in Prescott, Arizona, surrounded by an impressive collection of artifacts and filled with classical music, is not merely a workspace. It is a laboratory where history, mythology, and contemporary art intersect and transform each other. This holistic approach to artistic creation is reminiscent of Renaissance ateliers, where art was inseparable from daily life and scholarship.

Even Coleman’s working method is as fascinating as his finished works. He often begins with detailed preparatory drawings, but these are not merely technical studies. They are conceptual explorations revealing his profound understanding of form and space. This approach recalls Leonardo da Vinci’s notebooks, where drawing served as a tool for both thought and representation.

Coleman’s influence on contemporary sculpture cannot be underestimated. As a member and former president of the Cowboy Artists of America, he has elevated the artistic and intellectual standards of what was once considered a regional genre. His commitment to mentoring emerging artists through the Cowboy Artists of America program demonstrates his understanding of the importance of passing on artistic knowledge.

The irony is that Coleman, with his seemingly traditional approach, is in reality more “contemporary” than many self-proclaimed avant-garde artists. In an art world often obsessed with rupture and transgression, his commitment to continuity and dialogue is paradoxically more daring and more essential than ever. He reminds us that true innovation lies not in rejecting the past but in creatively integrating it into the present.

Coleman’s work raises fundamental questions about the nature of contemporary art. What makes a work contemporary? Is it the date of its creation, its techniques, or its themes? Coleman offers a different answer: a work is contemporary when it creates meaningful dialogue between past and present, between different cultures and artistic traditions. In this sense, his work is profoundly contemporary precisely because it rejects easy dichotomies between tradition and innovation.

Perhaps Coleman’s most significant contribution to contemporary art is his demonstration that tradition can be a vehicle for innovation. By mastering traditional bronze techniques and using them to explore contemporary issues of identity, memory, and culture, he creates a new model of artistic practice that transcends conventional categories of “traditional” and “contemporary” art.

His influence will undoubtedly continue to resonate in the years to come, not only in Western sculpture but in contemporary art as a whole. John Coleman shows us that it is possible to create art that is deeply rooted in tradition yet firmly oriented toward the future, art that honors the past while speaking directly to our time.

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