About the Artist
Chris Cook is a fine art photographer known for documenting the urban landscape in cities across the United States and abroad. Referring to himself as a “native tourist” of New York, Cook’s work captures life in the city around him. Much of his practice is centered in developing a vast chronicle of the sociopolitical issues his generation faces by creating photographs that preserve histories, record experiences, and capture the human condition. His creative process incorporates experimentation in traditional and new digital printmaking techniques, reflecting historical cycles of repetition and an ever-increasing technological impact on vision and perception. Cook extensively documented scenes from the Black Lives Matter protests in 2020, capturing struggle, resilience, and hope on film and digital formats. All 160 of his Black Lives Matter photographs have been acquired by the Valentine Museum of Art.
Cook (b. 1992) is from Brooklyn, NY. Solo exhibitions of his works include Mirror of the Times and Am I Next? at Welancora Gallery (2024, 2021), and What Has Always Mattered: Chris Cook BLM Photographs at Wilmer Jennings Gallery at Kenkeleba (2022). Cook has also participated in various group exhibitions at Art on the Ave, the Bronx Museum of Arts, Kente Royal Gallery, Hamilton Landmark Galleries, and more.
Cook’s work is in the collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art, Studio Museum in Harlem, the Metropolitan Museum of Art, and numerous colleges and universities including Yale University, Vanderbilt University, and Spelman College. He has been the recipient of the New York City Corps Grant, and an AIM Fellowship from the Bronx Museum of the Arts. Cook has been an artist in residence at the Saltonstall Foundation for the Arts.
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