Renee Cox (born October 16, 1960) is a Jamaican-American artist, photographer, lecturer, political activist and
curator
A curator (from la, cura, meaning "to take care") is a manager or overseer. When working with cultural organizations, a curator is typically a "collections curator" or an "exhibitions curator", and has multifaceted tasks dependent on the parti ...
. Her work is considered part of the
feminist art movement in the United States
The feminist art movement in the United States began in the early 1970s and sought to promote the study, creation, understanding and promotion of women's art.
First-generation feminist artists include Judy Chicago, Miriam Schapiro, Suzanne Lac ...
. Among the best known of her provocative works are ''Queen Nanny of the Maroons'', ''Raje'' and ''
Yo Mama's Last Supper
''Yo Mama's Last Supper'' is a work of art, made in 1996 by Jamaican-American artist Renée Cox. It is a large photographic montage of five panels, each 31 inches square, depicting photographs of 11 black men, a white Judas and a naked black w ...
'', which exemplify her
Black Feminist
Black feminism is a philosophy that centers on the idea that "Black women are inherently valuable, that lack women'sliberation is a necessity not as an adjunct to somebody else's but because our need as human persons for autonomy."
Race, gen ...
politics. In addition, her work has provoked conversations at the intersections of cultural work, activism, gender, and African Studies. As a specialist in film and digital portraiture, Cox uses light, form, digital technology, and her own signature style to capture the identities and beauty within her subjects and herself.
Background
Cox has "dedicated her career to deconstructing stereotypes and to reconfiguring the black woman's body, using her nude form as a subject."
She uses herself as a primary model in order to promote an idea of "self-love" as articulated by
bell hooks in her book ''Sisters of the Yam'', because as Cox writes in an artist's statement, "slavery stripped black men and women of their dignity and identity and that history continues to have an adverse affect
icon the African American psyche." One of Cox's main motivations has always been to create new, positive visual representations of African Americans. In her article, "A Gynocentric Aesthetic", Cox argues that a shift to matriarchal art will transform aesthetic expressions to interact with daily life and society, rather than compartmentalized artistic discussions that emphasize beauty over process and expression.
Greg Tate
Gregory Stephen Tate (October 14, 1957December 7, 2021) was an American writer, musician, and producer. A long-time critic for ''The Village Voice'', Tate focused particularly on African-American music and culture, helping to establish hip-h ...
, writer for ''
The Village Voice
''The Village Voice'' is an American news and culture paper, known for being the country's first alternative newsweekly. Founded in 1955 by Dan Wolf, Ed Fancher, John Wilcock, and Norman Mailer, the ''Voice'' began as a platform for the crea ...
,'' wrote: "(Renee's) her own heroine. She's very much about using the work as a platform for self-love. And she's clearly having fun in her role playing. It's a very New York attitude: 'Yeah, so what? I'm Jesus. I'm
Wonder Woman
Wonder Woman is a superhero created by the American psychologist and writer William Moulton Marston (pen name: Charles Moulton), and artist Harry G. Peter. Marston's wife, Elizabeth Holloway Marston, Elizabeth, and their life partner, Olive Byr ...
."
In addition to making art, Cox has curated and acted. She has done projects for Rush Art Gallery from its inception. In 1996 she curated an exhibition entitled ''No Doubt'' at the Aldrich Museum of Art in
Ridgefield, Connecticut
Ridgefield is a town in Fairfield County, Connecticut, United States. Situated in the foothills of the Berkshire Mountains, the 300-year-old community had a population of 25,033 at the 2020 census. The town center, which was formerly a borough ...
and she co-starred in Bridgett Davis' independent film ''Naked Acts'', where she portrayed a photographer.
Career
Editorial career
As a student at
Syracuse University
Syracuse University (informally 'Cuse or SU) is a Private university, private research university in Syracuse, New York. Established in 1870 with roots in the Methodist Episcopal Church, the university has been nonsectarian since 1920. Locate ...
, Cox majored in film studies. After graduating, she decided to devote her energy to the realm of still photography. She began as an assistant fashion editor at ''
Glamour Magazine
''Glamour'' is today an online women's magazine published by Condé Nast Publications. For many years a traditional hard-copy magazine, it was founded in 1939 and first published in April 1939 in the United States. It was originally called '' ...
'' and then moved to
Paris
Paris () is the capital and most populous city of France, with an estimated population of 2,165,423 residents in 2019 in an area of more than 105 km² (41 sq mi), making it the 30th most densely populated city in the world in 2020. S ...
to pursue a career as a fashion photographer. She spent three years working in Paris, shooting for magazines including ''Votre Beaute'' and ''Vogue Homme'' and for designers
Issey Miyake
was a Japanese fashion designer. He was known for his technology-driven clothing designs, exhibitions and fragrances, such as '' L'eau d'Issey'', which became his best-known product.
Life and career
Miyake was born on 22 April 1938 in Hirosh ...
and
Claude Montana
Claude Montana (29 June 1947 in Paris) is a French fashion designer. His company, The House of Montana, founded in 1979, went bankrupt in 1997.
Early life and Design career
Born in Paris in 1947 to a Catalan father and a German mother, Montana be ...
, among others.
Cox then returned to New York City, where she continued to work as a fashion photographer for ten years. Among her clients were editorial magazines such as ''
Essence
Essence ( la, essentia) is a polysemic term, used in philosophy and theology as a designation for the property or set of properties that make an entity or substance what it fundamentally is, and which it has by necessity, and without which it ...
'', ''
Cosmopolitan
Cosmopolitan may refer to:
Food and drink
* Cosmopolitan (cocktail), also known as a "Cosmo"
History
* Rootless cosmopolitan, a Soviet derogatory epithet during Joseph Stalin's anti-Semitic campaign of 1949–1953
Hotels and resorts
* Cosmopoli ...
'', ''
Mademoiselle'', and ''
Seventeen
Seventeen or 17 may refer to:
*17 (number), the natural number following 16 and preceding 18
* one of the years 17 BC, AD 17, 1917, 2017
Literature
Magazines
* ''Seventeen'' (American magazine), an American magazine
* ''Seventeen'' (Japanese m ...
''. She also worked with
Spike Lee
Shelton Jackson "Spike" Lee (born March 20, 1957) is an American film director, producer, screenwriter, and actor. His production company, 40 Acres and a Mule Filmworks, has produced more than 35 films since 1983. He made his directorial debut ...
, producing the poster for his 1988 film ''
School Daze''.
In the early 1990s, inspired by the birth of her first son, Cox decided to focus primarily on fine art photography. She received her Master of Fine Arts at the
School of Visual Arts in New York and subsequently spent a year working with
Mary Kelly and Ron Clark in the Whitney Independent Study Program.
Fine arts career
In 1994, Cox exhibited her piece ''It Shall Be Named'' in the show ''Black Male: Representations of Masculinity in Contemporary American Art,'' curated by
Thelma Golden
Thelma Golden (born 1965 in St. Albans, Queens) is the Director and Chief Curator of The Studio Museum in Harlem, New York City, United States. Golden joined the Museum as Deputy Director for Exhibitions and Programs in 2000 before succeeding ...
at the
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, known informally as "The Whitney", is an art museum in the Meatpacking District and West Village neighborhoods of Manhattan in New York City. It was founded in 1930 by Gertrude Vanderbilt Whitney (1875–194 ...
in New York City. A review of the show published in ''Art in America'' described the work as referring "back to traditional art forms—in this case, the shaped
crucifix
A crucifix (from Latin ''cruci fixus'' meaning "(one) fixed to a cross") is a cross with an image of Jesus on it, as distinct from a bare cross. The representation of Jesus himself on the cross is referred to in English as the ''corpus'' (Lati ...
es of 13th and 14th century Italy—with deep solemnity. The modern "distortions" and elisions of Cox's representation interact with the reference to iconic martyrdom to evoke the terrible history of
lynching
Lynching is an extrajudicial killing by a group. It is most often used to characterize informal public executions by a mob in order to punish an alleged transgressor, punish a convicted transgressor, or intimidate people. It can also be an ex ...
s, beatings and emasculation visited on the bodies of black men in this country."
That same year, Cox's seven-foot nude self-portrait ''Yo Mama'' was included in the ''Bad Girls'' show curated by Marcia Tucker at the
New Museum
The New Museum of Contemporary Art, founded in 1977 by Marcia Tucker, is a museum in New York City at 235 Bowery, on Manhattan's Lower East Side.
History
The museum originally opened in a space in the Graduate Center of the then-named New Sc ...
. Cox was the first woman ever to be pregnant during the Whitney Independent Study Program, pregnant at the time with her second son, which motivated her to create the Yo Mama character and series of photographs. In the photograph Cox stands nude, wearing black high heels, brandishing her older son as if he were a weapon. In ''Yo Mama and the Statue'', Cox critiques race and gender issues, whilst attempting to "reconcile her persona as a pregnant black woman artist with the white male convention of museum study and classical statuary."
In 1995, Cox,
Fo Wilson
Folayemi "Fo" Debra Wilson is an American Interdisciplinarity, interdisciplinary artist, designer, and academic administrator. Her practice includes work as a furniture designer and maker, installation artist, muralist, and graphic designer. Wils ...
, and
Tony Cokes created the Negro Art Collective (NAC) to fight cultural misrepresentations about Black Americans. The collective, working with
Creative Time
Creative Time is a New York-based nonprofit arts organization. It was founded in 1974 to support the creation of innovative, site-specific, socially engaged artworks in the public realm, particularly in vacant spaces of historical and architectura ...
and
Gee Street Records
Gee Street Records was a British hip hop record label started by Jon Baker in 1985. The label's name came from its original location, a converted warehouse on Gee Street (off Old Street) in London, EC1.
Between 1980 and 1984, label head Ba ...
, created a poster campaign to challenge and provoke preconceived notions about race, crime and poverty. "As far as representation, we have to take it back," Cox explained to the ''Daily News.'' The NAC appropriated a quote from scholar
Charles Murray Charles Murray may refer to:
Politicians
*Charles Murray, 1st Earl of Dunmore (1661–1710), British peer
*Charles Murray (author and diplomat) (1806–1895), British author and diplomat
*Charles Murray, 7th Earl of Dunmore (1841–1907), Scotti ...
and added their commentary so as to appropriate the quote for their purposes. The idea was to present viewers with real information, which flies in the face of what Americans are taught to believe. The 24 by 36 inch posters read: "Surprise, Surprise, 'in raw numbers, European-American whites are the ethnic group with the most people in poverty, most illegitimate children, most people on welfare, most unemployed men, and most arrests for serious crimes.' Surprised." The posters ran in Manhattan, Brooklyn and Los Angeles. The project was originally inspired by Cox's five-year-old son who had asked her one day: "Why are all black people bad?"
Soon after, Cox created her ''Raje'' alter-ego, a superhero who fights racism and teaches children African-American history. In 1998 the body of work was featured in a Fin de Siècle art festival in
Nantes, France
Nantes (, , ; Gallo: or ; ) is a city in Loire-Atlantique on the Loire, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 314,138 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabitan ...
. Nantes was historically the last stop on the slave trade, before the ships were to return to Africa to pick up their human cargo. The photographs were installed on billboards all over the city.
In 1999, Cox's work was shown in the Venice Biennale, in the Oratorio di S. Ludovico, a 17th-century Catholic church, where her piece ''
Yo Mama's Last Supper
''Yo Mama's Last Supper'' is a work of art, made in 1996 by Jamaican-American artist Renée Cox. It is a large photographic montage of five panels, each 31 inches square, depicting photographs of 11 black men, a white Judas and a naked black w ...
'' a contemporary re-imagining of
Leonardo da Vinci
Leonardo di ser Piero da Vinci (15 April 14522 May 1519) was an Italian polymath of the High Renaissance who was active as a painter, Drawing, draughtsman, engineer, scientist, theorist, sculptor, and architect. While his fame initially res ...
's classic, was first shown. In Cox's reimagining of this historically iconic scene, she stood nude in the place of Jesus Christ and is surrounded by all black apostles, except for Judas, who is white. In 2001, the piece was included in a
Brooklyn Museum of Art
The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Cro ...
exhibition ''Committed to the Image: Contemporary Black Photographers'', curated by Barbara Millstein.
In 2001, Cox opened a show at the Robert Miller Gallery called ''American Family''. The series featured family snapshots, as well as older family photographs juxtaposed with erotic self-portraits, and new re-creations of art historical classics. "Olympia's Boyz" is featured in this show, which first appeared at the
Brooklyn Museum
The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum located in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 1.5 million objects. Located near the Prospect Heights, Crown H ...
in 2001. Cox has written: "The body of work was a rebellion against all of the pre-ordained roles I am supposed to embrace as a woman: dutiful daughter, diminutive wife, and doting mother."
Later that year Cox undertook another series of photographs, this one named for the
Jamaica
Jamaica (; ) is an island country situated in the Caribbean Sea. Spanning in area, it is the third-largest island of the Greater Antilles and the Caribbean (after Cuba and Hispaniola). Jamaica lies about south of Cuba, and west of His ...
n national heroine,
Queen Nanny
Queen Nanny, Granny Nanny, or Nanny of the Maroons ONH (c. 1686 – c. 1733), was an 18th century leader of the Jamaican Maroons. She led a community of formerly enslaved Africans called the Windward Maroons. In the early 18th century, under t ...
of the
Maroons
Maroons are descendants of Africans in the Americas who escaped from slavery and formed their own settlements. They often mixed with indigenous peoples, eventually evolving into separate creole cultures such as the Garifuna and the Mascogos.
...
. In the series, Cox took on the persona of Queen Nanny, who led the Maroons to victory in the
First Maroon War
The First Maroon War was a conflict between the Jamaican Maroons and the colonial British authorities that started around 1728 and continued until the peace treaties of 1739 and 1740. It was led by self-liberated Africans who set up communities i ...
. ''Queen Nanny of the Maroons'' was originally shown at the Robert Miller Gallery in 2005. Cox then exhibited the body of work in the Jamaican Biennial in 2007 where it won the Aaron Matalon Award.
Cox continues to show her work as well as develop new projects as she is inspired. Her present work explores
sacred geometry
Sacred geometry ascribes symbolic and sacred meanings to certain geometric shapes and certain geometric proportions. It is associated with the belief that a god or goddess is the creator of the universal geometer. The geometry used in the des ...
and the use of fractals to create sculptural kaleidoscopes. ''Soul Culture''
for Cox has marked her embrace of the digital world and her continued exploration of the human body as a site to engage viewers and evoke the practice of healthy and intersectional discourse.
Critical assessment
Writing for ''
Vogue
Vogue may refer to:
Business
* ''Vogue'' (magazine), a US fashion magazine
** British ''Vogue'', a British fashion magazine
** ''Vogue Arabia'', an Arab fashion magazine
** ''Vogue Australia'', an Australian fashion magazine
** ''Vogue China'', ...
'' magazine, art critic
Roberta Smith
Roberta Smith (born 1948) is co-chief art critic of ''The New York Times'' and a lecturer on contemporary art. She is the first woman to hold that position.
Early life
Born in 1948 in New York City and raised in Lawrence, Kansas. Smith studied at ...
described ''Yo Mama'' as "one of the most striking images in the East Coast portion of the ''Bad Girls'' exhibition…A towering self-portrait, it showed the artist, naked except for a pair of black high heels, holding her two-year-old son…The image presents a woman, both regal and erotic, who seems singularly disinclined to take guff from anyone and whose son will undoubtedly grow up to respect her gender."
In 2001, ''
Yo Mama's Last Supper
''Yo Mama's Last Supper'' is a work of art, made in 1996 by Jamaican-American artist Renée Cox. It is a large photographic montage of five panels, each 31 inches square, depicting photographs of 11 black men, a white Judas and a naked black w ...
'' sparked an enormous controversy when
Rudy Giuliani
Rudolph William Louis Giuliani (, ; born May 28, 1944) is an American politician and lawyer who served as the 107th Mayor of New York City from 1994 to 2001. He previously served as the United States Associate Attorney General from 1981 to 198 ...
, then mayor of New York City, saw the work and proceeded to accuse Cox of being anti-Catholic. Giuliani gained national attention when he subsequently called for the creation of a panel to create decency standards for all art shown in publicly funded museums in the city. Giuliani told the ''Daily News'' that he did "not believe that it is right for public money to be used to desecrate religion, to attack people's ethnicity."
Cox's ''Yo Mama'' is one of the focuses of writer Sheila F. Winborne's chapter, "Images of Jesus in Advancing Great Commission", in the book ''Teaching All Nations: Interrogating the Matthean Great Commission''. Winborne describes Cox's ''Yo Mama'' as "fine", relating the piece to "The perpetuation of the myth that the realistically rendered white Christ is superior to all other representational approaches supports the perception that the main issue is about appearances as signs of cultural and spiritual value, whereas in reality the main concern is the power to control outcomes in one's own favor." Winborne further compares Cox's ''Yo Mama'' to popular representations of Christ by adding: "Ideas of white Christ as necessarily the most 'holy' of images reinforces the power of this myth's creators and supporters, along with the continued unequal treatment of others."
Cox publicly responded to Giuliani's accusations by defending her first amendment right to portray herself as Christ. As Cox explained, her Catholic school education taught her that all human beings were created in the likeness of God. "It's all very hypocritical," she was quoted as saying in the ''Daily News'', "now that he has been busted with the other woman, I wouldn't be talking about moral issues." At the time, Giuliani had recently admitted his affair with long-time friend Judy Nathan and proceeded to divorce his wife, Donna Hanover.
Cox states that her reasoning for her ''Yo Mama's Last Supper'' piece was because "Christianity is big in the African-American community, but there are no presentations of us," Cox added, "I took it upon myself to include people of color in these classic scenarios."
This was the second time during Giuliani's tenure that he attempted to censor art shown in New York City's museums and it sparked a national controversy about artists' first amendment rights.
Exhibition history
Publication list
Books
*Bonazzoli, Francesca; Robecchi, Michele. ''Mona Lisa to Marge: How the World's Greatest Artworks Entered Popular Culture''.
*Cassel, Valerie; Sabin, Roger; Weldt, Bernard; Mayo, Marti. ''Splat Boom Pow! The Influence of Cartoons in Contemporary Art''.
*Copeland, Cynthia R.; Hulser, Kathleen; Stokes Sims, Lowery, ''Legacies: Contemporary Artists Reflect on Slavery''
*Coq, Christian. ''Kreyol Factory''
*Cox, Renee; Isaak, Jo Anna. ''Renee Cox: American family''.
*Cullen, Deborah; Fuentes, Elvis. ''Caribbean: Art at the Crossroads of the World''.
*Dunye, Cheryl; Goode Bryant, Linda; Tanner, Marcia; Tucker, Marcia. ''Bad Girls''
*Farrington, Lisa. ''Art & identity: the African-American aesthetic at the New School''
*Foner, Eric. ''Give Me Liberty!: An American History'' (Fourth Edition) (Vol. 1).
*Heartney, Eleanor; Posner, Helaine; Princenthal, Nancy, Scott, Sue. ''The Reckoning: Women Artists of the New Millennium''.
*Hobson, Janell. ''Venus in the Dark: Blackness and Beauty in Popular Culture''.
*Hoffmann, Nancy. ''Who More Sci-Fi Than Us?: Contemporary Art from the Caribbean''.
*Isaac, Jo Anna. ''Looking Forward, Looking Black''.
*Jay Z, ''Decoded''
*Jones, Amelia. ''Self/Image: Technology, Representation, and the Contemporary Subject''
*Lawrence, O'Neil. ''Pictures from Paradise: A Survey of Contemporary Caribbean Photography''.
*Liss, Andrea. ''Feminist Art and the Maternal''.
*Lotz, Leo. ''Bizarro World! The Parallel Universes of Comics & Fine Arts''
*Plate, S. Brent. ''Blasphemy: Art that Offends''
*Reid-Pharr, Robert F.; Delany, Samuel R. ''Black Gay Man: Essays''.
*Rosenfeld Dassel, Sara. ''Dramatis personae: a look at role-playing and narrative in contemporary photography''.
*Solana, Guillermo. ''Heroinas''
*Stirratt, Betsy; Johnson, Catherine. ''Feminine Persuasion: Art and Essays on Sexuality''.
*Szeemann, Harald. ''Venice Biennale 1999: Over All - 48th Exposition of International Art, Aperto''.
*Thompson, Barbara. ''Black Womanhood: Images, Icons, and Ideologies of the African Body''.
*Willis, Deborah. ''Black Venus 2010: They Called Her "Hottentot"''.
*Willis, Deborah; Williams, Carla. ''The Black Female Body: A Photographic History''
*X Ball, Barry; Steensma, Regnerus; Nieboer, Jan Willem; Blaettler, James R. ''The one chosen: images of Christ in recent New York art''
*Yee, Lydia. ''Urban Mythologies: The Bronx Represented Since 1960's''
Magazines and journals
*Charles, Nick. "Art of fighting stereotypes." ''
Daily News''
*Colangelo, Lisa and Michael R. Blood "Rufy & 'Yo Mama,'" ''Daily News''
*Eversley, Shelly; Morgan, Jennifer. ''The Sexual Body: WSQ'': Spring / Summer 2007.
*Nochlin, Linda. "Learning From 'Black Male'" ''Art in America'', March 1995
*Srivastav, Vinita. "The Woman Behind the Storm." ''Savoy Magazine'', May 2001
*Smith, Roberta. "Body of Evidence." ''Vogue'', August 1994
*The Sunday Review 10 July 2000. "Pride and Prejudice", ''The Independent on Sunday''.
References
External links
Renee Cox's Official WebsiteSalon interview with CoxRush Art GallerySoul CultureAperture interview with Cox
{{DEFAULTSORT:Cox, Renee
1960 births
American women photographers
American photographers
American contemporary artists
Feminist artists
Jamaican emigrants to the United States
Living people
People from Queens, New York
Syracuse University College of Visual and Performing Arts alumni
Postmodern artists
People from Scarsdale, New York
Jamaican photographers
Jamaican women photographers
Jamaican artists
21st-century American women
American women curators
American curators