Exhibition Opening Event
September 17, 6:00pm
The Gordon Parks Foundation Gallery
48 Wheeler Avenue
Pleasantville, New York, 10570
Larry W. Cook is a 2024 Gordon Parks Foundation Fellow in Art.
Nelson George is an author and filmmaker, and a contributor to Jamel Shabazz: Albums
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Through photographs, video, and mixed-media works, Larry W. Cook explores iconography within Black vernacular photographs, examining how such images shape our understanding of Black history and culture. From 2007 to 2013, Cook worked as a club photographer in the Washington D.C. area, setting up makeshift photo booths that featured printed or painted backdrops of surreal landscapes and symbols of luxury. Since then, he has drawn on his own photographic archive as well as found archives of vernacular portraits—taken in spaces ranging from dance clubs to prison visiting rooms—to create works that celebrate the pose as a vital act of individual agency.
In Forever, For Always, Cook began with club portraits sourced from family photo albums, friends, online auction houses, and his own archive. He then transformed these images into large-scale artworks adorned with rhinestones, glitter, in which the individuals appear as shimmering forms. Set against backdrops that, in Cook’s words, “symbolize not just material luxury but also aspirations and dreams,” these embellishments act as “a nod to Black fashion and expression, representing the transformation of self within the ephemeral space of club culture.” Through these richly textured works, Cook honors fleeting moments of joy, desire, and community, offering images that shimmer with the layered histories of Black life, resilience, and self-determination.
Larry W. Cook (b.1986 Silver, Spring, MD) is an interdisciplinary artist and archivist working across photography, video, and mixed media. Cook received his MFA from George Washington University. From 2007 to 2013, he worked as a club photographer throughout the Washington D.C. area, setting up makeshift photo booths that featured backdrops of surrealist landscapes and luxury goods. Cook’s practice explores how the pose and hand-painted backdrops circulate within vernacular club and prison photographs, often re-imagining them through collage, digital manipulation, and staged photography. Cook’s work celebrates the legacy of the pose as a form of individual agency and pays homage to the rich tradition of Black cultural spaces. Cook has exhibited his work nationally at the Brooklyn Museum, Baltimore Museum of Art, MoMA PS1, National Portrait Gallery, and internationally at Schirn Kunsthalle Frankfurt in Germany and Efie Gallery in Dubai. His work is in the public collections of the Museum of Modern Art, Harvard Art Museums, Baltimore Museum of Art, Light Work, and other institutions. Cook is a recipient of the 2024 Gordon Parks Fellowship. He is an Associate Professor at Howard University.
