Ian Cooper | |
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Born | 1978 (age 45–46) New York City, U.S. |
Occupations |
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Years active | 2017–present |
Ian Cooper (born 1978) is an American visual artist, [1] film producer, and academic, [2] best known for his collaborations [3] with Jordan Peele; he currently serves as creative director of Peele's Monkeypaw Productions. [4]
Cooper has had solo exhibitions in galleries and museums throughout the United States and abroad. His "mixed-media sculptures" [5] have been written about in The New York Times, [6] Artforum, [7] among others. His work is held in the permanent collections of the Whitney Museum of American Art [8] and the Pérez Art Museum. [9]
Cooper's art has been described as "obsessed with the dark side of adolescence and with how the transition from youth to adulthood is acted out in a variety of aesthetic statements." [7] Cooper's sculptures of "institutionalized surfaces" [10] "filtered through the aesthetics of his 1980s childhood, pervert the forms and features of K-12." [10] Works have featured references to ballet barres, [5] institutional projection screens, [5] and a "penetrated matador's cape." [5] Writing about his work, Artforum critic Alex Javonovich stated that Cooper's sculptures are "sensuous yet sterile" and "frantic and batty." [11]
Cooper's artistic style can be seen reflected in his film work, and themes and elements from his exhibiting art career have appeared in his contributions to films, including ballet barres [5] in scenes from Jordan Peele's Us.
In 2017, Cooper was brought on as the Creative Director [4] of Monkeypaw Productions, as well as becoming Jordan Peele's producing partner. [12] Since joining the company, Cooper has produced the following feature films: Peele's 2019's Us ; Nia DaCosta's Candyman (2022); and Peele's 2022 film Nope .
Feature Films:
Us
During filming, Ian Cooper went to great lengths [13] to ensure key plot points weren't leaked early, in one instance telling passersby that the crew was filming a Verizon commercial.
Candyman
Cooper spoke highly about the unity of the cast and crew throughout the filming process. [14] Reviews of the film praised the writing, [15] directing, [16] and social critiques [17]
Nope
While few details have been released about Monkeypaw's latest film Nope, the teaser announcement [18] included a released date of July 22, 2022. It has been confirmed [19] that the cast will include Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer, and Steven Yeun. Cooper is credited on the film as a producer.
Before entering the film world, Ian Cooper was on the sculpture faculty at New York University's Steinhardt School Department of Arts & Arts Professions from 2005 to 2017. Cooper also served as the lead faculty of the Senior Studio Program and was the program coordinator for the Senior Honors Studio program [20] across the first three years of its inception. During his tenure at NYU, Cooper co-created the NYU Curatorial Collaborative [2] which remains a capstone experience to the thesis program, as well as a cross-departmental program that unites a select group of curatorial graduate students from The Institute of Fine Art [21] with a group of jury-selected undergraduate visual artists from the Steinhardt Studio Art program. The initiative "fosters interdisciplinary teamwork that prepares both the artists and art historians for future projects in their respective fields" [22] and results in a series of exhibitions annually, held at the 80WSE Gallery. [23] Cooper also partnered with artist Sara Greenberger Rafferty to teach a Cartoon Logic course at Michigan's prestigious Ox-Bow School of Art. [24] [25]
Jordan Haworth Peele is an American actor, comedian, and filmmaker. He is known for his film and television work in the comedy and horror genres. He has received various accolades, including an Academy Award and a Primetime Emmy Award. Peele started his career in sketch comedy before transitioning to writing and directing psychological horror with comedic elements. In 2017, Peele was included on the annual Time 100 list of the most influential people in the world.
Carol Bove is an American artist based in New York City. She lives and works in Brooklyn.
Candyman 3: Day of the Dead is a 1999 American supernatural slasher film directed by Turi Meyer and starring Tony Todd and Donna D'Errico. It is the third installment in the Candyman series, and a direct sequel to the 1995 film Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh. Its plot follows Caroline, the daughter of Annie Tarrant and a descendant of the Candyman, the powerful spirit of the murdered son of a slave who kills those who invoked him, who finds herself targeted by him on the eve of the Day of the Dead.
Daniel Kaluuya is an English actor. Prominent both on screen and stage, he has received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, two BAFTA Awards, and a Golden Globe Award. In 2021, he was named among the 100 most influential people in the world by Time magazine.
John Torreano is an American artist from Michigan. He is currently clinical professor of studio art at the Steinhardt School of Culture, Education, and Human Development at New York University. Torreano is known for utilizing faceted gems in a variety of mediums in order to create "movement oriented perception" in his works. Artist Richard Artschwager described Torreano's works as "paintings that stand still and make you move."
Yeun Sang-Yeop, known professionally as Steven Yeun, is an American actor. Yeun initially rose to prominence for playing Glenn Rhee in the television series The Walking Dead (2010–2016). He earned critical acclaim for starring in the thriller Burning (2018) and the drama Minari (2020). The latter earned him a nomination for the Academy Award for Best Actor, making him the first Asian American actor to be nominated. Time magazine named him one of the 100 most influential people in the world in 2021. In 2023, he starred in the dark comedy series Beef (2023), for which he won two Primetime Emmy Awards and a Golden Globe Award.
Jordan Wolfson is an American visual artist who lives in Los Angeles. He has worked in video and film, in sculptural installation, and in virtual reality.
Marcia Marcus is an American figurative painter of portraits, self-portraits, still life, and landscape.
Monkeypaw Productions is an American independent film and television production company founded in 2012 by Jordan Peele. The company is known for producing horror films, such as Get Out, Us, Candyman, Nope, and Wendell & Wild, as well as other films, such as Keanu and Monkey Man.
Taro Masushio is a Japanese artist and writer living in New York, NY. Masushio attended the University of California, Berkeley where he earned a BA and New York University where he earned an MFA.
Shellyne Rodriguez is an American visual artist, organizer, and professor.
Candyman is a 2021 supernatural horror film directed by Nia DaCosta and written by Jordan Peele, Win Rosenfeld, and DaCosta. The film is a direct sequel to the 1992 film of the same name and the fourth film in the Candyman film series, based on the short story "The Forbidden" by Clive Barker and set between Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995) and Candyman 3: Day of the Dead (1999). The film stars Yahya Abdul-Mateen II, Teyonah Parris, Nathan Stewart-Jarrett, and Colman Domingo with Vanessa Williams, Virginia Madsen, and Tony Todd reprising their roles from the original film.
Jason Hirata is an artist who has shown internationally. Hirata's work can be described as institutional critique. He lives and works in Princeton, New Jersey.
Chrissie Iles is a British-American art curator, critic, and art historian. She is the Anne & Joel Ehrenkranz Curator at the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York City.
Win Rosenfeld is an American screenwriter and producer, best known for his collaborations with Jordan Peele.
Nope is a 2022 American science fiction horror film written, directed, and produced by Jordan Peele, under his and Ian Cooper's Monkeypaw Productions banner. It stars Daniel Kaluuya and Keke Palmer as horse-wrangling siblings attempting to capture evidence of an unidentified flying object in Agua Dulce, California. Appearing in supporting roles are Steven Yeun, Michael Wincott, Brandon Perea, and Keith David.
Robert Strawbridge Grosvenor is an American contemporary sculptor, installation artist, and draftsman. He is known for his monumental room installations, which border between sculpture and architecture. Grosvenor is associated with minimalism.
Rayyane Tabet is a Lebanese visual artist, known for his sculpture.
Eric Dever is an American painter. His paintings are held in the collections of Grey Art Gallery New York University, the Parrish Art Museum, Guild Hall Museum, and the Heckscher Museum of Art. Dever has exhibited throughout the United States since the early 1990s, including exhibitions in France, Hong Kong and Helsinki.
Nope (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack to the 2022 neo-Western science fiction horror film Nope written, directed and produced by Jordan Peele starring Daniel Kaluuya, Keke Palmer and Steven Yeun. The original music is composed by Michael Abels, Peele's regular collaborator, which consisted of a score that blends grand adventurous music and eerie sounds matching the film's script. Most of the themes were written before the film's production and were developed with a 60-piece orchestra and 30-member vocal choir recorded for a year.