Artist Statement/ Biography

Heavily influenced by photographs, Joseph Wilcox often uses found and constructed images as part of an interdisciplinary approach to art making; including video, moving image, text, sculpture, and printed works. He is interested in understanding systems of power and working to usurp those systems as a way to expose and reflect on them. He tends to use the internet, pop culture, mass media, and personal narrative as sources to create work that focus on power, politics, and money. His current research interests lie at the intersection of the internet, leftist politics, images as propaganda, humor as critique, détournement as artistic strategy, and alternative art economies.

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By adopting the roles of image gatherer, entrepreneur, documentarian, object-maker, and organizer, Joseph Wilcox explores how institutional control, political systems, and social power structures undermine individual autonomy. He was the co-founder of LDOC, a free yearlong arts publication distributed on the Red Line train in Chicago; an artist-in-residence at the Bemis Center for Contemporary Arts, HATCH Projects at the Chicago Artists Coalition, and LATITUDE Chicago; and the first place winner of The Blooom Award by Warsteiner. Solo and two-person exhibitions include Good Children Gallery (New Orleans, LA), Chicago Artists Coalition (Chicago, IL), and The Rangefinder Gallery (Chicago, IL). He received his MFA from Lesley University College of Art and Design and his BFA from Kendall College of Art and Design. He lives and works in Brooklyn.