Carl Hancock Rux
Carl Hancock Rux () is an American poet, playwright, singer-songwriter, novelist, and essayist, as well as an installation artist working in diverse multimedia. His work includes sound and image installation, photography, and performative lectures. He is the author of a collection of poetry, Pagan Operetta; a novel, Asphalt; and the play Talk. Rux has been published as a contributing writer in numerous journals, catalogs, anthologies, and magazines, including Interview magazine, Essence magazine, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Iké Udé's aRude Magazine, Nka: Journal of Contemporary African Art (founded by fellow art critics Okwui Enwezor, Chika Okeke-Agulu and Salah Hassan) and American Theatre (magazine), among others. Rux's writings and monographs on visual art include essays on the work of conceptual artist Glenn Ligon ( I Stand in My Place With My Own Day Here: Site-Specific Art at The New School, edited by Frances Richards with a foreword by Lydia Matthews and introduction by Silvia Rocciolo and Erik Stark); the introduction for Nick Cave’s Until; and the Guggenheim Museum’s Carrie Mae Weems retrospective.
Rux is also a singer-songwriter who has released several albums, singles, and mixtapes since his major-label debut, Rux Revue, released by Sony 550 Music. His recording career has encompassed jazz, electronic music, rock,experimental music. Among his most notable collaborators are electronic musicians DJ Spooky, Jeff Mills, David Holmes, Geoff Barrow of Portishead, and Afrobeat drummer Tony Allen; rock musicians Nona Hendryx, Vernon Reid, Meshell Ndegeocello, and Rob Marshall (formerly of Exit Calm); and jazz artists Randy Weston, Mal Waldron, Leroy Jenkins, Gerald Clayton, and James Brandon Lewis.
Trained as a visual artist, Rux's mixed media works (with frequent collaborator, visual artist and sculptor, Dianne Smith) have been included in the Uptown Triennale at the Miriam and Ira D. Wallach Art Gallery; as well as Park Avenue Armory. He is a recurrent collaborator with artist Carrie Mae Weems on several of her live performance exhibitions, presented at the Spoleto Festival USA, Yale Repertory Theater, London's Serpentine Gallery, the Frieze Art Fair, the Kennedy Center and other venues.
Rux has held faculty positions at notable institutions including Brown University, The New School for Social Research, Yale University, The University of Iowa and is the former Head of the MFA Writing for Performance Program at CalArts.
Rux is co-artistic director of Mabou Mines, special guest resident artist at Lincoln Center for the Performing Arts (where annually he conceives and stages its campus-wide Juneteenth festival) former multidisciplinary editor at The Massachusetts Review.,), and the former associate artistic director at Harlem Stage The Gate House.
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