Carl Hancock Rux (/ˈrʌks/) is an American poet, playwright, singer-songwriter, novelist, essayist, as well as multidisciplinary performing and installation artist.

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.

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;[3] as well as the Archer Aymes Retrospective, exploring the legacy of emancipation through an immersive art installation featuring a concert performance by mezzo soprano Alicia Hall Moran and pianist Aaron Diehl, presented as one component of a three-part series commemorating Park Avenue Armory.

[4] 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.

While institutionalized in a state-operated long-stay psychiatric hospital for adults with extreme mental health disorders, doctors discovered Rux's mother had once again become pregnant.

The couple legally adopted their ward at the age of 15 and changed his name to Carl S. Hancock Rux, raising him in the Highbridge section of the Bronx.

Influenced by the Lower East Side poetry and experimental theater scene, Rux worked with artists including Sekou Sundiata, Laurie Carlos, Robbie McCauley, Jane Comfort, and Urban Bush Women, creating work primarily at Performance Space 122), Judson Church, St. Mark's Church in-the-Bowery, The Kitchen, Threadwaxing Space and the Nuyorican Poets Cafe.

[18] He also originated the title role in the folk opera production of The Temptation of St. Anthony, based on the Gustave Flaubert novel, directed by Robert Wilson with book, libretto, and music by Bernice Johnson Reagon and costumes by Geoffrey Holder.

The Village Voice described Rux's performance as having "phenomenal charisma and supreme physical expressiveness...(achieving) a near-iconic power, equally evoking El Greco's saints in extremis and images of civil rights protesters besieged by fire hoses.

Rux testified in the case of Jonathan 'Demetrius' Norman, a Portland Oregan gang member, rapping under the name of Smurf Luciano, accused of running cocaine for a local drugpin.

[26] Rux worked with the Fort Greene Association, New York philanthropist Barbaralee Diamonstein-Spielvogel and Commissioner Laurie Cumbo (then councilwoman of the 35th District of New York City) to erect a cultural medallion at the Carlton Avenue home where novelist Richard Wright lived and penned his seminal work, Native Son.