Tony Cokes
A guide to the moving image artists that move culture.
Who is Tony Cokes?
Tony Cokes is a US visual artist. He was born in Richmond, Virginia in 1956; he studied photography and creative writing at Goddard College, and he received an M.F.A. in sculpture from Virginia Commonwealth University in 1985. Cokes lives and works in Providence, Rhode Island.
What characterizes Cokes’ artistic vision?
His artistic practice revolves around the concepts of popular culture and mass media. Since the 1990s, he has been experimenting with video art that hones in on historical and cultural phenomena, specifically tied to investigating the tensions between identity and opposition. Cokes integrates found footage, imagery, textual cues and pop music, through which he questions the role that race has in shaping how culture, identity and history are perceived.
Cokes engages in an analytical reframing and repositioning of integrated materials, relying on contemporary cultural studies, poststructuralist theories and popular texts to elicit doubt and instabilities in viewers, with the intent of resonating these messages into the political, social and cultural domains.
Where have Cokes’ works been exhibited?
Cokes’ text-based video and multimedia installations have been exhibited and/or included in the collections of many renowned art institutions, museums and galleries, including: Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Guggenheim Museum, New York; Documenta X, Kassel; REDCAT, Los Angeles; Luma Westbau, Zürich; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris.
His works have had festival screenings at: Kurzfilmtage Oberhausen (1993, 2005), International Film Festival Rotterdam (2001, 2006, 2009-2013), Seoul Film & Net Festival (2005), Rencontres Internationales Paris-Berlin-Madrid (2003-2013), Media City Film Festival, Windsor-Detroit (2022).
What awards and/or recognition has Tony Cokes received?
Cokes’ thought-provoking video art has garnered him awards, grants and fellowships from many different institutions: Rockefeller Foundation, John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, National Endowment for the Arts, New York Foundation for the Arts, New York State Council for the Arts, and the Getty Research Institute.
On October 1, 2024, he was announced as one of the recipients of the highly-coveted MacArthur Foundation Fellowship, carrying a stipend of $800,000 to finance projects of his own choosing.
What projects is Tony Cokes engaged in?
Cokes currently holds a chair in the Department of Modern Media and Culture at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island. He is currently working on a long-term project focused on the legacy of the Manchester-based record label, Factory Records, which produced albums by the bands Joy Division and New Order.
Where can I find more information about Tony Cokes?
More information about Cokes and his innovative video and multimedia installations can be found on the site of his gallery Greene Naftali. Cokes is also active on Instagram.