Biography
Robert Beck was born in the suburbs of Baltimore, MD, and came to New York City in 1978 to pursue film production and cinema studies at New York University. In 1993, he attended the Independent Study Program (ISP) of the Whitney Museum of American Art. Buck is a multidisciplinary artist recognized for his precise use of materials, ranging from traditional art supplies to such unconventional materials as mortician’s wax, gunpowder, and forensic latent fingerprint powder. His constellated vocation is informed by his training as a filmmaker, specifically montage, a technique that utilizes the cut and adjacency. In 2008, he re-conceived his practice by changing his given, or father’s last name, by a single vowel, from Beck. This artistic maneuver shifted his work, broadened its implications, and challenged prevalent notions of patriarchy, authorship, and identity. Soon after, he bought a remote off-grid cabin/studio along the U.S.-Mexico border south of Marfa, Texas. There, alone, without WiFi or cell service, Buck creates work precipitated by the isolation, austerity, and beauty of the land. Buck is a member of the Lacanian Compass, an associated group of the New Lacanian School (NLS), and serves as Art & Culture Editor of The Lacanian Review. Among his artistic honors are the 2019 Pollock-Krasner Foundation Award, the 1999 Louis Comfort Tiffany Foundation Award, the 1995 New York Foundation for the Arts Fellowship, and an Art Matters, Inc. grant that same year. In 2007, he had a major solo exhibition at the Wexner Center for the Arts, Columbus, OH. His works are part of museum and private collections worldwide. Buck's visual art is represented by Von Ammon Co., Washington, DC, and by Ulterior Gallery, New York. His moving image works are distributed by Electronic Arts Intermix (EAI), New York. Buck lives and works in New York City and far West Texas.
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