Brett Cook creates objects, experiences, and feelings that defy classification in any singular 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 social collaborations include a South Central Los Angeles project addressing divinity; the Development/Gentrification Project installed in 10 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, others have been self-initiated interventions on abandoned spaces. Cook has completed scores of these contemplative projects, often through an interactive and collaborative process. 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 that inform his process and products. Brett’s work in museums and galleries can take a variety of skillfully crafted forms, with a recurrent emphasis on painting, drawing, and photography. Brett’s museum work frequently includes elaborate installations that make intimately personal experiences universally accessible. Brett’s gallery installation work regularly includes documented participatory public projects, using a wide variety of media to retell the stories of transformation that occur through the social collaboration process. Cook’s solo exhibitions include, “Face Up: Telling Stories of Community Life” at the Center for Documentary Studies at Duke University, Durham North Carolina, "Revolution" and "Multifaceted" at P.P.O.W. Gallery in New York and “Meditations” at the Zilkha Gallery/Wesleyan University. Group exhibitions include “Portraiture Now” at the Smithsonian/National Portrait Gallery, Washington D.C. “Social Studies/Brown V. Board of Ed. 40th Anniversary”, University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign; “Community Interactions” Wayne State University Gallery, Detroit MI; and "Hip-Hop Nation", Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, San Francisco, CA. Brett’s teaching practice is an extension of his public collaborations and similarly involves diverse communities in dialogue to generate experiences of reflection and insight. He has taught in all academic levels in a variety of subjects, and published in academic journals at Columbia and Stanford Universities. He was the 2008 Lehman Brady Visiting Joint Chair Professor in Documentary Studies and American Studies at Duke University and the University North Carolina - Chapel Hill. Cook received a BFA from University of California at Berkeley and has had many residencies including the Skowhegan School of Painting and Sculpture, Maine, the Studio Museum in Harlem, New York, and the Headlands Center for the Arts, Marin California. Brett Cook
Website Highlights  Amherst College Community Portraits with Wendy Ewald and Amherst University 2006 - 2008  Building Community Making History Collaborative Project/Exhibition The National Portrait Gallery and Duke Ellington School of the Arts May 2007  Identity of Interbeing Collaborative Project/Exhibition Packer Collegiate Academy April 2006  Colors of Compassion Collaborative Project Deer Park Monastery October 2005  Meditations Solo Exhibition Ezra and Cecile Zilkha Gallery at Wesleyan University’s Center for the Arts April 2005 Brett Cook Links Face Up Documentary VideoProject%20-%20Amherst%202007.htmlProject%20-%20NPG%20and%20Duke%20Ellington%202007.htmlProject%20-%20Identity%20of%20Interbeing%202006.htmlProject%20-%20Colors%20of%20Compassion%202005.htmlProject%20-%20Meditations%20exhibition%202005.htmlhttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vnnd7U1Ju18shapeimage_4_link_5