Marguerite Van Cook (née Martin) (born 1954) is an English artist, writer, musician/singer and filmmaker. She was born in

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most dens ...

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe b ...

and now resides in

New York City New York, often called New York City or NYC, is the List of United States cities by population, most populous city in the United States. With a 2020 population of 8,804,190 distributed over , New York City is also the L ...

on the

Lower East Side The Lower East Side, sometimes abbreviated as LES, is a historic neighborhood in the southeastern part of Manhattan in New York City. It is located roughly between the Bowery and the East River from Canal to Houston streets. Traditionally an im ...

, in the East Village. She attended Portsmouth College of Art and Design,

Northumbria University , mottoeng = A lifetime of learning , established = 1877 - Rutherford College of Technology1969 - Newcastle Polytechnic1992 - gained university status , type = Public , budget = � ...

Graphic and Fine Arts programs, BMCC, and

Columbia University Columbia University (also known as Columbia, and officially as Columbia University in the City of New York) is a private research university in New York City. Established in 1754 as King's College on the grounds of Trinity Church in Manhatt ...

for English (BA) and Modern European Studies (MA). She currently attends the

CUNY Graduate Center The Graduate School and University Center of the City University of New York (CUNY Graduate Center) is a public research institution and post-graduate university in New York City. Serving as the principal doctorate-granting institution of the Ci ...

in the French PhD program. She has also served as an Adjunct Professor at

and the Fashion Institute of Technology (FIT) in New York.

Career

Music

Van Cook was the lead singer for The Innocents, a UK punk band, who toured as opening act for

The Clash The Clash were an English rock band formed in London in 1976 who were key players in the original wave of British punk rock. Billed as "The Only Band That Matters", they also contributed to the and new wave movements that emerged in the wa ...

and

The Slits The Slits were a punk and post-punk band based in London, formed there in 1976 by members of the groups the Flowers of Romance and the Castrators. The group's early line-up consisted of Ari Up (Ariane Forster) and Palmolive (a.k.a. Paloma R ...

on the "Sort it Out Tour." After this group disbanded, she joined "Steppin' Razor," an all female reggae band, as the bass player. They opened for

Yellowman Winston Foster , better known by the stage name Yellowman, is a Jamaican reggae and dancehall deejay, also known as King Yellowman. He first became popular in Jamaica in the 1980s, rising to prominence with a series of singles that established ...

at Harlem World.

Art career

Van Cook opened and ran

Ground Zero Gallery NY Ground Zero Gallery was an art gallery formed in the East Village of Manhattan in New York City in mid-1983 as a vehicle for the partnership of artist James Romberger and his co-founder Marguerite Van Cook. In 1984, the gallery found its first phy ...

with her partner

James Romberger James Romberger (born 1958) is an American fine artist and cartoonist known for his depictions of New York City's Lower East Side. Romberger's pastel drawings of the ravaged landscape of the Lower East Side and its citizens are in many public ...

in the East Village Art scene, from 1983-1986. Among the gallery presentations was the

David Wojnarowicz David Michael Wojnarowicz ( (September 14, 1954 – July 22, 1992) was an American painter, photographer, writer, filmmaker, performance artist, songwriter/recording artist, and AIDS activist prominent in the East Village art scene. He incorp ...

show ''Mexican Diaries'', which informed the video "A Fire in My Belly," which sparked a controversy when it was removed from the exhibition ''Hide/Seek'' from the

National Portrait Gallery National Portrait Gallery may refer to: *National Portrait Gallery (Australia), in Canberra *National Portrait Gallery (Sweden), in Mariefred *National Portrait Gallery (United States), in Washington, D.C. *National Portrait Gallery, London, with s ...

in 2011. Under the banner of "Ground Zero", the couple curated and produced shows at Danceteria, Max Fish and other downtown clubs. In 1991, she became the director of Elston Fine Arts. In 2003, together with Romberger she directed the Fine Art elements of the Howl! Festival, an annual festival of the East Village, which included public outdoor sculpture exhibits, gallery shows. In 2006, she became the director and producer of the festival. Van Cook has presented solo and group shows and her work is in many major public collections. Van Cook has presented works as a performance artist. She was part of a collaborative group curated by

Carlo McCormick Carlo McCormick is an American culture critic and curator living in New York City. He is the author of numerous books, monographs and catalogues on contemporary art and artists. Pedagogic and art writing activities McCormick was Senior Edito ...

, which included, James Romberger, David West,

Marilyn Minter Marilyn Minter (born 1948) is an American visual artist who is perhaps best known for her sensual paintings and photographs done in the photorealism style that blur the line between commercial and fine art. Minter currently teaches in the MFA de ...

, Christof Kolhofer,

Keiko Bonk Keiko Cecilia Bonk (born 1954) is an American artist, musician and politician from Hawaii. Bonk co-founded the Hawaii Green Party and was the first person in North America elected to a partisan level office as a member of the Green Party of the ...

and

Luis Frangella Luis Frangella (July 6, 1944 – December 7, 1990) was an Argentinian figurative post-modern painter and sculptor associated with the expressionist painting of the Lower East Side of New York City in the 1980s. He received a Guggenheim Fellowsh ...

. Together they painted installations in New York and Virginia.

Film

Van Cook produced and directed the film ''Funky Shui in New York''. Additionally, she appeared in David Wojnarowicz and Tommy Turner's film ''Where Evil Dwells'', as well as taking the role of Red Snapper in

Nick Zedd Nick may refer to: * Nick (given name) * A cricket term for a slight deviation of the ball off the edge of the bat * British slang for being arrested * British slang for a police station * British slang for stealing * Short for nickname Place ...

and Rev.Jen’s series ''Electra Elf''.

Writing

While attending

, Van Cook won the Van Rensselaer Poetry Prize, previously won by notables such as

John Berryman John Allyn McAlpin Berryman (born John Allyn Smith, Jr.; October 25, 1914 – January 7, 1972) was an American poet and scholar. He was a major figure in American poetry in the second half of the 20th century and is considered a key figure in th ...

and

Thomas Merton Thomas Merton (January 31, 1915 – December 10, 1968) was an American Trappist monk, writer, theologian, mystic, poet, social activist and scholar of comparative religion. On May 26, 1949, he was ordained to the Catholic priesthood and giv ...

. Her book "Stigma" is in the "Joan Flasch Artists' Book Collection" and her periodical The Murdering Class was carried by art book distributors "Printed Matter". Other publications in which her work has appeared include "Peau Sensible", or "Sensitive Skin", "The Hooded Utilitarian" and in

Sounds In physics, sound is a vibration that propagates as an acoustic wave, through a transmission medium such as a gas, liquid or solid. In human physiology and psychology, sound is the ''reception'' of such waves and their ''perception'' by the ...

for whom she wrote music reviews.

Comics and graphic novels

Of her comics work, Van Cook is known for her color work on the graphic novel ''Seven Miles a Second'', with Romberger and

. Van Cook was nominated for an Eisner Award in 2014 for her work on this book in the category of Best Painter/Multimedia Artist (interior art). The graphic novel was reprinted in 2013 as ''7 Miles a Second'' by Fantagraphics Books publishers with amended color production. The original artwork was shown 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 ...

and the comic was included in the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street between Fifth and Sixth Avenues. It plays a major role in developing and collecting modern art, and is often identified as one of ...

"Open Ends, Millennium Show". In 2014 she wrote and colored ''The Late Child and Other Animals'', a generational memoir, which was adapted and drawn by James Romberger and published by Fantagraphics Books. The story "Nature Lessons" from the book received an Ignatz nomination for "Outstanding Story" in 2015. She has worked for

DC Comics DC Comics, Inc. (doing business as DC) is an American comic book publisher and the flagship unit of DC Entertainment, a subsidiary of Warner Bros. Discovery. DC Comics is one of the largest and oldest American comic book companies, with thei ...

as a writer and colorist. She has collaborated on a comic ''Ground Zero'' with James Romberger, which was serialized through the 1980s and 1990s in various downtown literary magazines.''Creating Comics!'', Eds. Judith Salavetz and Spencer Drate. Rockport Publishers, 2010. p. 120-123

References

External links

*
''Ground Zero'' comic

{{DEFAULTSORT:Van Cook, Marguerite 1954 births Living people American female comics artists People from Manhattan Alternative cartoonists English punk rock singers Women punk rock singers People from the East Village, Manhattan