David Brooks with Dr. Julie Reiss

Artist David Brooks and art historian Dr. Julie Reiss discuss creative life in the context of our new social reality.

David Brooks is an artist whose work considers the relationship between the individual and the built and natural environment. His work investigates how cultural concerns cannot be divorced from the natural world, while also questioning the terms under which nature is perceived and utilized. Brooks has had solo exhibitions and major projects at the Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum; Storm King Art Center; MoMA/PS1; deCordova Museum; the Dallas Contemporary; Tang Museum; Nouveau Musée National de Monaco; Galerie für Landschaftskunst, Hamburg; Nevada Museum of Art; Ballroom Marfa; and the Sculpture Center, among others. From 2011 to 2012 Brooks had Desert Rooftops on view in Times Square, a 5000-sq. ft. earthwork commissioned by Art Production Fund; and from 2017 to 2018 a large-scale geologic installation on Governors Island, commissioned by the Trust for Governors Island. He is the recipient of the Rome Prize, a research grant to the Ecuadorian Amazon from the Coypu Foundation, and a Smithsonian Artist Research Fellowship. Brooks lives and works between New York and New Orleans, and is a professor at NYU Gallatin.

David is also a contributor of the Rail. Read more.

In the Rail:

• NOTES TOWARD A MANIFESTO FOR THE FUTURE INFRASTRUCTURALISTS! River Rail
• A BUCKET LIST FOR ARTISTS WORKING IN THE AGE OF ECOLOGICAL COLLAPSE: The Top Ten Things Not To Miss Before They Are Gone! November 2015
• a collective free association of “A Proverbial Machine in the Garden” November 2015
• DAVID BROOKS with Greg Lindquist June 2017

Dr. Julie Reiss is an art historian who directs a Master’s program at Christie’s Education. Julie has presented papers and chaired panels on issues related to art and climate change at conferences including the College Art Association and the Conference for the Council for European Studies. She is the author of From Margin to Center: The Spaces of Installation Art (1999) and the editor of Art, Theory and Practice in the Anthropocene (2018). Reiss is also a contributor of the Brooklyn Rail.

In the Rail:

• Art in the Climate Crisis: Offering opportunities for direct action, reminding us of our broken connection to nature June 2019
• Elizabeth Corr in Conversation with Julie Reiss June 2019

The New Social Environment — Daily conversations with artists, writers, filmmakers, poets around the world where we discuss creative life in the context of our new social reality.