Tony Cokes
b. 1956
In a series of videotapes and installations produced since the mid-1980s, Tony Cokes engages in cogent investigations of identity and opposition. His works question how race influences the construction of subjectivities (personal, cultural and historical), and how race, gender and class are perceived through what he terms the "representational regimes of image and sound," as perpetuated by Hollywood, the media and popular culture. Cokes' analytical strategy is one of reframing and repositioning. His critiques are informed by contemporary cultural studies, poststructuralist theory, and popular texts; he quotes from sources ranging from Louis Althusser, Malcolm X and Catherine Clement to Public Enemy and William Burroughs. His works are often assemblages of archival footage, images from Hollywood films, text commentary, voiceover, and popular music. For the past several years Cokes has also been creating installations and tapes as part of the collective X-PRZ. Founded in 1991, X-PRZ is a biracial "art band" of four artists Ñ Cokes, Doug Anderson, Kenseth Armstead, and Mark Pierson Ñ working in installation, photography, painting, sculpture, and video. Cokes states: "We tend to man…
Films