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Dennis Adams

Professor

Dennis Adams is internationally recognized for his urban interventions and museum installations that reveal historical and political undercurrents in photography, cinema, public space and architecture. Over the last twenty-five years, He has realized over fifty urban projects in cities worldwide from Antwerp to Zagreb. His work has been the subject of numerous one-person exhibitions in museums and galleries throughout North America and Europe, and is included in major public collections both here and abroad, including the Museum Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museum of Modern Art, New York; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Fonds National d’Art Contemporain, Paris; Museum van Hedendaagse Kunst, Antwerp; the Städtische Galerie im Lenbachhaus, Munich; and the Fotomusem Winterthur, Zurich.

Adams has taught at numerous institutions including: Parsons School of Design, New York; Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Beaux-Arts, Paris; Rijksakademie van Beeldende Kunsten, Amsterdam; and the Akademie der Bildenden Künste, Munich. He regularly lectures, participates in conferences, and offers seminars at academic and cultural institutions around the world. From 1997 to 2001, he was Director of the Visual Arts Program and Professor in the School of Architecture at MIT. In 2001 he joined the faculty of The Cooper Union where he teaches 3-Dimensional Design, Sculpture, and the Public Art studio/seminar.

  • Founded by inventor, industrialist and philanthropist Peter Cooper in 1859, The Cooper Union for the Advancement of Science and Art offers education in art, architecture and engineering, as well as courses in the humanities and social sciences.

  • “My feelings, my desires, my hopes, embrace humanity throughout the world,” Peter Cooper proclaimed in a speech in 1853. He looked forward to a time when, “knowledge shall cover the earth as waters cover the great deep.”

  • From its beginnings, Cooper Union was a unique institution, dedicated to founder Peter Cooper's proposition that education is the key not only to personal prosperity but to civic virtue and harmony.

  • Peter Cooper wanted his graduates to acquire the technical mastery and entrepreneurial skills, enrich their intellects and spark their creativity, and develop a sense of social justice that would translate into action.