Ron Cooper (born 1943) is an American artist who grew up in Ojai, California and started his career in the late 1960s in
Los Angeles
Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...
. By 1973, Cooper had already participated in numerous international solo and group shows with pieces in the permanent collections of the
Guggenheim Museum
The Guggenheim Museums are a group of museums in different parts of the world established (or proposed to be established) by the Solomon R. Guggenheim Foundation.
Museums in this group include:
* The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum in New York, Ne ...
and
LACMA
The Los Angeles County Museum of Art (LACMA) is an art museum located on Wilshire Boulevard in the Miracle Mile vicinity of Los Angeles. LACMA is on Museum Row, adjacent to the La Brea Tar Pits (George C. Page Museum).
LACMA was founded in 1961 ...
, and special exhibitions such as that at the
La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art
LA most frequently refers to Los Angeles, the second most populous city in the United States of America.
La, LA, or L.A. may also refer to:
Arts and entertainment Music
*La (musical note), or A, the sixth note
*"L.A.", a song by Elliott Smit ...
.
Career
Cooper began his work, art, and journey with
Mezcal
Mezcal (, ), sometimes spelled mescal, is a liquor, distilled alcoholic beverage made from any type of agave.
Agaves or magueys are endemic to the Americas and found globally as ornamental plants. The ''Agave'' genus is a member of the Agavoid ...
, a distilled alcoholic beverage, in 1970, when he visited the Mexican state
Oaxaca
Oaxaca, officially the Free and Sovereign State of Oaxaca, is one of the 32 states that compose the political divisions of Mexico, Federative Entities of the Mexico, United Mexican States. It is divided into municipalities of Oaxaca, 570 munici ...
.
Art
Cooper's art explores light, reflection, transparency, and color, through the medium of colored fluorescent lights, neon, and glass. In his ''Separator Variations'' series the colored fluorescent fixtures, separated by glass, reflect and appear to overlap combining the colors producing a third hue. Most of his pieces, like the ''Separator Variations'' series, demonstrate the additive nature of light. His other work includes environmental installations and neon focused on the same themes.
In 2009 Ron Cooper's work was included in a group exhibition at the Harwood Museum in
Taos, New Mexico
Taos () is a town in Taos County, New Mexico, Taos County, in the north-central region of New Mexico in the Sangre de Cristo Mountains. Initially founded in 1615, it was intermittently occupied until its formal establishment in 1795 by Santa Fe ...
curated by
Dennis Hopper
Dennis Lee Hopper (May 17, 1936 – May 29, 2010) was an American actor, filmmaker, photographer and visual artist. He was considered one of the key figures of New Hollywood. He earned prizes from the Cannes Film Festival and Venice Internatio ...
called ''Hopper Curates -
Larry Bell, Ron Cooper,
Ronald Davis
Ronald "Ron" Davis (born 1937) is an American painter whose work is associated with geometric abstraction, abstract illusionism, lyrical abstraction, hard-edge painting, shaped canvas painting, color field painting, and 3D computer graphic ...
,
Ken Price &
Robert Dean Stockwell''.
Mezcal
In Oaxaca, Cooper lived and worked with the locals, and strived to bring Mezcal to the world at large. He founded Del Maguey in the 1990s, bringing Mezcal to the awareness of American consumers as an artisanal or craft ingredient for many creative cocktails. Cooper has done dinner pairings with chefs
José Andrés
José Ramón Andrés Puerta (; born 13 July 1969) is a Spanish-American chef and restaurateur. Born in Spain, he moved to the United States in the early 1990s and since then, he has opened restaurants in several American cities. He has won a num ...
, and
Mary Sue Milliken appeared on CNN with
Anthony Bourdain
Anthony Michael Bourdain ( ; June 25, 1956 – June 8, 2018) was an American celebrity chef, author and Travel documentary, travel documentarian. He starred in programs focusing on the exploration of international culture, cuisine, and the huma ...
, and in 2016 Cooper was awarded the
James Beard Award
The James Beard Foundation Awards are annual awards presented by the James Beard Foundation to recognize chefs, restaurateurs, authors and journalists in the United States. They are scheduled around James Beard's May 5 birthday. The media awar ...
for “Outstanding Wine, Beer, or Spirits Professional”.
Exhibitions
*''Ron Cooper,'' An exhibition by the La Jolla Museum of Contemporary Art, La Jolla, California, May 13-July 1, 1973.
See also
*
Light sculpture
Light, visible light, or visible radiation is electromagnetic radiation that can be perceived by the human eye. Visible light spans the visible spectrum and is usually defined as having wavelengths in the range of 400–700 nanometres (nm) ...
References
External links
Askart
1943 births
Living people
American contemporary artists
Artists from Taos, New Mexico
Artists from Los Angeles
{{US-artist-stub