Lecture: “Collaborative Aesthetics”
When attending an artist’s lecture, it is perfectly reasonable to expect the artist not to give free hugs. Fortunately, nobody told Brett Cook about traditional lecture dynamics. Wednesday, March 18th, in his lecture entitled
“Collaborative Aesthetics: a Dialogue about Community and Soul” at Washington University, Cook hugged every participant who offered their definitions of “community” and “soul.”
The rest of the lecture was much of the same. After beginning with a breathing exercise in order to better assess the artwork, Brett Cook exhibited photos of traditional portraiture in the faculty club at Harvard University and a cow sculpture painted with Mondrian geometry in a West Indian neighborhood. He displayed artwork that he views as inaccessible to the public and irrelevant to the community. In contrast, Cook presented his own portfolio, which was increasing representative of the spaces in which each piece was displayed.
With each slide, one could see his improving technique; he began with linear self-portraits on buildings and subway stations and over time acquired a greater understanding of value and tone. His subject matter moved from the personal to work that comments on modern day realities like racism, sexism, and xenophobia. Often using two panels and collaborating with a fellow artist, Cook produced Cézanne-like portraits of intense and energetic strokes of color. He captioned these faces with powerful labels, rather than signing his name and submitting to our “culture of personality,” in which artists consciously create artwork in order to promote their identity. However, his insightful commentary on the realities of Los Angeles Police Department, Native Americans, and homelessness prove to be more progressive than his preferred anonymity.
Cook reiterated the idea of art as representative of “community” and “soul” with each image. Over the two hours that he spoke, his work became more and more symbolic of the audience’s definitions. He argued that in challenging the elitist history of portraiture by turning urban streets into museums, his art progressed from, “Here’s something that’s messed up; let me tell you about it,” to illustrating the world in the way he wants it to look. Each portrait was situated so that the viewer was eye level with the subjects: often progressive leaders like Zora Neale Hurston or inhabitants of the neighborhood in which the piece would be shown.
Most recently, Cook has organized block parties for underprivileged areas in New York (”Celebrating 127th Street”) and at Amherst College in which residents could feast on organic food, watch empowering films, and participate in artwork, all for free. In order to incorporate the residents into art that would become part of their habitat, Cook had participants connect the dots to form preplanned abstract outlines of the tones within the portrait, almost giving each subject an elevation map-like look. Children then colored in these figures and Cook integrated their designs into the final piece. The inclusive nature of his artwork was reflected in his lecture; in addition to audience participation, the video clips shown gave voices to the people most affected by his work. In the beginning, Cook stated that he had no intention of “just standing on stage talking to us.” Instead, he let others contribute to what should have been a discussion all about him.
The presentation culminated when Cook’s collaborative work at Amherst proved to finally be relevant to the audience’s definitions of “community” and “soul,” in that the whole community helped create artwork that represented the neighborhood. Of the many ideals that Brett Cook explained, the motif of innovation from collaboration was the most potent. I left that night feeling like giving free hugs myself.
Interested in more? Click here for more student reviews on this lecture.
