Ron Cooper

Biography

Ron Cooper was born in New York City in 1943 and lives in Ranchos de Taos, New Mexico, and Oaxaca, Mexico. He is among the pioneering California-based Light and Space artists, so-called because of their ability to break beyond the bounds of the physical object to experiment with the manipulation of light and space and their effects on perception.

Cooper works with variously colored fluorescent lights, as well as materials like glass panels, resin, and fiberglass that hold, refract, and reflect light. Though his vocabulary is Minimalist —he crafts cubes, rectangles, and circles out of the interplay of light on the materials he uses—his works are luminous, insubstantial, devoid of mass and solidity.

Cooper moved to Taos in 1982 and began working out of his studio in the Ranchos Trading Post building. He now has a facility in Ranchos de Taos that also serves as the headquarters of Del Maguey Single Village Mezcal, for which he won a James Beard Foundation award.

Schools of Study

Chouinard Art Institute, Los Angeles, CA

Partial List of Collections

Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris, France
Fort Worth Art Museum, Fort Worth, TX
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA
Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, La Jolla, CA
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY
Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam, the Netherlands
Whitney Museum of American Art, NY

AWARDS

National Endowment for the Arts 1980

Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum Theodoran Award and Fellowship 1971
National Endowment for the Arts 1970
Los Angeles County Museum of Art Young Talent Award 1968

Selected Exhibitions

Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY 1968
Pasadena Art Museum, Pasadena, CA 1971
Albright-Knox Art Galleries, Buffalo, NY 1972
Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, NY 1972
The Kitchen, NY 1980
Marian Goodman Gallery, NY 1980
Museum of Contemporary Art La Jolla, La Jolla, CA 1981
Cirrus Gallery, Los Angeles, CA 1983
Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles, CA (1978, 1981, 1982, 1983)
Charlotte Jackson Fine Art, Santa Fe, NM 2001
Colectivo Central, Oaxaca, Mexico