“A Dialogue on Art and Social Collaboration” with Brett Cook and Wendy Ewald, March 17, 7 p.m.
Held at the Nasher Museum of Art at Duke University
Photographer Wendy Ewald and painter Brett Cook first worked together in 1999, when Ewald invited Cook to work with teachers in Durham. Since then they have been discussing and refining the ways in which they make collaborative art. Last fall, at Amherst College, they created their first public installation/exhibition together. In A Dialogue on Art and Social Collaboration, they will describe how they each formerly conceived and carried out a collaborative project, one that involved constructing rich, welcoming environments for their partners to work in—in addition to making their own photographs and paintings. They will also talk about how they melded their working methods in the making of Amherst College Portraits: A Community Collaboration with Wendy Ewald and Brett Cook.
Wendy Ewald
Wendy Ewald is a conceptual artist who has collaborated with communities in the United States and throughout the world for more than thirty years. Ewald’s approach to photography probes questions of identity and cultural differences. She has received many honors, including a MacArthur Fellowship in 1992. She has had solo exhibitions at major museums and was included in the 1997 Whitney Biennial. She is currently a visiting artist at Amherst College, a senior research associate at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, and an artist-in-residence at the John Hope Franklin Center, also at Duke University. Towards the Promised Land, published by Steidl/Artangel, is her tenth book.
Brett Cook
Brett Cook creates artwork and experiences that defy classification in any single discipline. His work has been shown at museums and galleries since 1991, concurrent with a practice manifested in public projects since 1984. The public works have been executed in the United States, from California to Maine, and internationally in Brazil, Barbados, and Mexico. His public collaborations include a South Central Los Angeles project addressing divinity; the Development/Gentrification Project installed in ten locations throughout Harlem; and a project addressing segregation at the Harvard Graduate School of Education. While some of his work has been commissioned by museums or public agencies, other projects have been self-initiated interventions on abandoned spaces. His use of participatory ethnographic strategies, progressive educational pedagogy, and community organizing connect his work to exceptionally wide audiences. He is a seasoned Ashtangi and student of many forms of yoga, meditation, and healing, which inform his process and products.
Cook is currently the Lehman Brady Visiting Joint Chair Professor for Documentary Studies and American Studies at Duke University and the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill for Spring 2008. He is also working with Face Up: Telling Stories of Community Life (www.faceupproject.org), a project of the Center for Documentary Studies in Southwest Central Durham.
