Cobalt Head

• Title Cobalt Head
• Category Sculpture
• Medium Cobalt
• Dimensions 8"h x 7"w
• Year Completed Undated
• Description A very hard, lustrous gray metal, natural cobalt is always chemically combined with another element, most commonly copper or nickel. Because cobalt ore also contains arsenic, the smelting process produces highly toxic and volatile arsenic oxide. In the 1960s, when this cobalt head was purchased, cobalt’s main use was in the production of alloys important in the fabrication of gas turbines and jet engines, and in manufacturing corrosive resistant metals. Today, cobalt is also used in lithium batteries. Because refined cobalt would have been available only within the confines of a Gécamines plant, because of the high temperatures (around 1500 ?) required to melt cobalt, and because this head was clearly the product of industrial-type tools, it was almost certainly made by workers from the Gécamines complex. The process used to make the image would have been similar to that used for hundreds of years by metal workers from Katanga. Since 1400 B.C.E., people had made copper crosses used for money by pouring molten metal into a depression formed in sand. After removing the hardened cobalt from a similar type of form, workers would have used industrial equipment to smooth and polish the metal. If made inside the facility, the head would have been produced without the knowledge or approval of management. If produced outside, the materials and tools may have been pilfered. In either case, selling cobalt items such as this would have been a way for workers to supplement their incomes.
• Artist Congo
• Credit John and Janet Yoder Collection
• Location Lied Art Center 202
• Accession Number 2022.0196
• Status Checked Out
• Administration Admin View
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