[4] In 1995, Renee Cox, Fo Wilson, and Tony Cokes created the Negro Art Collective (NAC) to fight cultural misrepresentations about Black Americans.
His videos often take the form of essays in which Cokes displays fragments of found texts on brightly-colored backgrounds,[6] set to popular music.
[11] In this work Cokes juxtaposes the old news reel footage with written commentary from Morrisey, Guy Debord, Barbara Kruger, and Martin Gore.
[13] William S. Smith says in Art In America, “Cokes’ working method enables him to respond to current events while continuing his longstanding investigation of race in popular culture”.
Cokes’ work highlights the dissonance of the media coverage of the ongoing movement for racial justice where protests remain framed as violent flare-ups, despite incidents being statistically few and far between.
[4] He was included in the 10th Berlin Biennale,[17][18] and has shown at the Hessel Museum, Whitechapel Gallery, ZKM Karlsruhe, and Goldsmiths Center for Contemporary Art.