Cooper (artist)
Cooper (stylized as COOPER; born Brian Cooper, 1976) is an American artist known for sculptures and assemblages He lives and works in Alaska. Early life. Cooper was born and raised in Miami, Florida. He changed his name to a mononymous title in all capital letters in 1993. Career. Cooper's work has been published in "Miami Contemporary Artists" by Paul Clemence, Julie Davidow, Elisa Turner, (Schiffer Publishing 2007 ) and Bonnie Clearwater's book "Making Art in Miami, Travels in Hyper-reality" (2001 Museum of Contemporary Art ) as well as periodicals including "Art in America", "Sculpture" Magazine, "Art Papers , ArtNews", "The New York Times", "The Village Voice", "Santa Fe Reporter" and "The Miami Herald". In March 2005, the Fredric Snitzer Gallery in Miami exhibited Cooper's solo show titled "Whiskey for a Red Dawn" at which the Museum of Contemporary Art North Miami, acquired a large scale drawing titled "The finest palaces always make the most impressive ruins. So spend your money as fast as possible, and always use some sort of gold appliqué." Art writer Jocelyn Adele Gonzalez comments, "The work is simultaneously humorous and distressing, and at some point lies on the edge of being socio-political . There is indubitably an integration and simultaneity of subjects that intertwine to present the viewer the episteme of the post modern condition where appropriations, simulacrum and parodies go beyond mere pastiche." In May 2007, Dwight Hackett Projects exhibited a solo show of Cooper's sculpture called "I see a Red Door and want to Paint it Black". This exhibition included the piece titled "Dead Ringer, Low E is the Sound of Black" consisting of a baby grand piano buried underneath the gallery in a makeshift concrete tomb, a live video image of the piano was viewable on a flat screen  television above the buried chamber, and a single piano key could be reached by the audience via a ground penetrating sword-like protrusion. Cooper is a founder of Locust Projects, an alternative non-profit exhibition space in Miami's Wynwood Art District, started in 1998.