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The Artist Project: Nayland Blake

Artist Nayland Blake reflects on boli in this episode of The Artist Project.
From March 2015 to June 2016, we invited 120 artists—local, national, and global—to choose individual works of art or galleries that sparked their imaginations. In this online series, artists reflect on what art is, what inspires them from across 5,000 years of art, and in so doing, they reveal the power of a museum and The Met.

"So much of its meaning as a sculpture is bound up, not in what you can see on the outside, but what it contains within."

Artist Nayland Blake reflects on "boli" in this episode of The Artist Project—an online series in which artists respond to works of art in The Met collection.

About the Artist
Nayland Blake is an American mixed-media artist who was born in 1960.

Nayland Blake (American, born 1960)

Work Station #5, 1989

Steel, glass, aluminum, leather, plastic, rubber, and cleavers; 54 1/2 × 24 1/2 × 55 1/2 in. (138.43 × 62.23 × 140.97 cm). San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, Gift of Dare and Themistocles Michos in memory of John Caldwell © Nayland Blake. Photo: Ben Blackwell


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Boli (power figure), Wood, cloth, beads, applied organic materials, Bamana peoples
Bamana peoples
19th–20th century
Boli (power object), Bamana artist, Wood, applied organic materials, Bamana
Bamana artist
Early 20th century
Seated figure, Middle Niger artist, Terracotta, Middle Niger civilization
Middle Niger artist
13th century