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Mark+Cohen.Pdf The PHOTO REVIEW $7.00 Volume 29 Number 4 . a knowledge of photography is just as MARK COHEN important as that of the alphabet. The illiterate of the future MARIO ALGAZE will be ignorant of the use of the camera and pen alike. THE PHOTO REVIEW COMPETITION WINNERS László Moholy-Nagy 1936 Mark Cohen Girl with Bat and Ball, 1977 (negative), 2008 (print). Dye transfer print, sheet: 14x17 inches (35.6 x 43.2 cm). Collection of the artist. From “Strange Evidence" at the Philadelphia Museum of Art 1 ooking at Mark Cohen’s work reminds me of an as- signment once given to Lbeginning photography stu- without stepping outside of a square- foot area. By removing the ability to simply chase down enticing subjects in the hopes that their novelty, beauty, or pathos alone would yield a compelling photograph, the student is forced to explore photographic form and point of view through a repeated look at a limited subject. For the viewer, this technique also creates an encounter with a decidedly subjective vision and encourages comparison across mul- tiple frames. By the 1970s, Cohen had himself established a highly controlled working method in terms of both his choice of locale and photographic technique. Armed with a 35mm cam- era, Cohen photographs the streets and outdoor spaces of his hometown of Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania, along with neighboring small cities. His use of a wide-angle lens allows him to get extremely close to his (largely human) subjects and the resulting distortion of depth and relative size have become a stylistic marker of his photography. but rather thrusts the camera toward his subjects to “grab” each photograph He cultivates his art within this closed system of his own devising, likening six letter alphabet.1 While much critical writing has Mark Cohen: Flashed Man, Scranton, Pennsylvania, 1988, gelatin silver print, sheet: 20"x16". working process and technical choic- (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gift of Virginia Zabriskie, 1991.) es, curator Peter Barberie seeks to also delve deeper into the relatively uneasy area of content in the Philadelphia Museum of Art’s exhibition, Mark Co- hen: Strange Evidence. The show sur- Mark Cohen: veys Cohen’s career in just over sixty photographs, focusing primarily on his black-and-white images from the Strange Evidence 1970s, for which he has achieved pri- mary critical recognition. A dozen dye transfer prints are also included, along b y K A R E N J E N K I N S with representational works from the 1980s through 2008. at the Museum of Modern Art in New 2 Halter/Hand on Chest/Cheap Ring, 1974, gelatin silver print, sheet: 16"x20" (40.6 x 50.8 cm). (Collection of the artist.) York in 1973 and inclusion in John of human experience and document Cohen’s photographs are also ener- Szarkowski’s 1978 survey “Mirrors the historical realities of the places he gized by his own experience vis-à-vis and Windows: American Photography shoots.”2 the social dictates of photographing since 1960,” curators and critics have Cohen’s titling of his images also strangers in the public squares and generally labeled Cohen’s work in underscores the tension between sidewalks of his chosen towns. De- relation to both the modern vision of form and content in his best works. - Henri Cartier-Bresson and the street Labeling an image of an anonymous raphy of the previous decades, Wilkes- photography of Garry Winogrand crosssection of décolletage Halter/ Barre is not New York; while Cohen’s and Diane Arbus. While his work de- Hand on Chest/Cheap Ring in part street encounters may be anonymous, his method of surprise intrusions into documentary mode, it has often been comparison of formal elements with the personal space of his subjects are examined in the context of the social the frame and across multiple images. all the more jarring in that there was landscape, a conceptual framework There is much pleasure in viewing decidedly no crowd for Cohen to dis- that acknowledges a subjective vision Cohen’s collection of assorted trun- appear into in his small city. While without denying certain historical cated torsos and tangles of vines and he was never invisible to his subjects, “facts.” limbs, but equally so in thinking of Cohen becomes both director and un- Barberie takes on this notion of the historically particular material seen protagonist of his photographs, in the historical document in relation to culture of a small Pennsylvania city their embodiment of his exaggeratedly Cohen’s photography, suggesting that in the 1970s. While some of Cohen’s subjective point of view. in his foregrounding of the disjointed residents display a youthful hipness This reminds me of the 1947 elements of his surprise human en- in their hair and dress, just as many Dark Passage, in counters, and minimizing of many children in their hand-me-down details of the surrounding scenes, Co- clothing and (not just elderly) ladies sought to guide the viewer through the hen’s photographs “function as strange in their scarf-protected hairdos bear evidence — they may not provide out the lack of urban sophistication Bogart’s character saw them. In Co- traditional sight cues or even clear and certain behind-the-times-ness of hen’s work, the recognition of such a motifs, but they distill crucial aspects these places. transparent authorship does not limit 3 4 the viewer’s experience, but rather in- vites further examination of the famil- iar made strange. Cohen’s work from the 1980s and onward in these same locales is also represented in Strange Evidence and bear out a changing social climate as Cohen switched to longer lenses and stepped back from (or away from altogether) his human subjects, and in so doing, losing some- thing of the power of his best works at the heart of this exhibition. Beyond certain singular iconic im- ages, contemporary audiences likely know Cohen’s full range of work through two recent monographs pub- lished by powerHouse Books: Grim Street (2005) a survey of black-and- white works and True Color (2007) comprised of works begun in the 1970s following an invitation from the George Eastman House to experi- Barbarie’s selection of dye transfer prints in this exhibition can be found in the latter volume (and the inventory of the Rose Gallery in Santa Monica), his choice of gelatin silver prints from the photographer’s own collection du- plicate only two images published in Grim Street, including the well-known Bubble Gum from 1975. Barbarie’s different selections for Strange Evi- dence show the photographer at his best, offering both an engaging intro- duction and worthwhile second (and third) look. Mark Cohen: Strange Evidence was on view at the Philadelphia Muse- um of Art’s Levy Gallery in the Perel- man Building from October 23, 2010, to March 13, 2011. Boy in Grass, 1988, gelatin silver print, sheet: 20"x16". (Philadelphia Museum of Art, Gift of Virginia Za- Mark Cohen: Lost/Found is on briskie, 1991.) view at Silverstein Photography through August 5. The gallery is lo- cated at 535 West 24th Street, New York, NY 10011, 212/627-3930, www. brucesilverstein.com. Hours are Tues- NOTES day – Saturday 11–6. 1. See 2004 Interview of Mark Cohen Karen Jenkins is a photo historian by Thomas Southall in Grim Streets who has held curatorial positions at (New York: powerHouse Books, the Center for Creative Photography Opposite above: Flashed Man on Square, 1975, 2005), p.141. in Tucson and the Demuth Museum in gelatin silver print, sheet: 16"x20" (Collection of the artist.) Lancaster, Pennsylvania. I 2. Peter Barberie quoted in Philadel- Opposite below: Hand/Paper Bag, Flashed, c. phia Museum of Art press release, 1974, gelatin silver print, sheet: 16"x20" (Collec- October 13, 2010. tion of the artist.) 5 March 27, 2009 Review: Mark Cohen at ROSEGALLERY By Leah Ollman Three Boys Posing, Wilkes-Barre, PA, 1975, dye transfer print. Credit: Mark Cohen/ROSEGALLERY One sign of a generous photographic image is its continuously unspooling details, narratives and readings. As long as you attend to it, it just keeps unfurling. Mark Cohen’s photographs at Rose Gallery are like that: small snippets of reality, densely packed with possibility. The pictures were shot in the artist’s hometown of Wilkes-Barre, Pa., mostly during the 1970s, commissioned by the George Eastman House to encourage Cohen to try Kodak color film. (The prints on view are from a recently released portfolio of 14-by-17-inch dye transfers.) Cohen had established himself as an assertive street photographer in the vein of William Klein and Lee Friedlander, and with this body of work, he added bold color to ferociously honest gesture. Cohen’s pictures are lean and tight, radically trimmed of pictorial fat. Heads and feet are commonly missing; fragmentary details tell the story. Naked torsos of two young boys lie on an “Improvised Beach” of newspaper atop dirt. A man in the proverbial and literal driver’s seat cradles his beefy, sticky-nosed baby. The white whiff of smoke released from the red-slicked lips of a woman wrapped in a royal blue scarf adds up to a close-cropped grab of natural Americana. The mining town setting plays a bit part in this epic of stills, the images being more about moment than place. Each picture is an improvised steal; even the posed shots reveal the unexpected. Buck teeth, a toothless grin and protectively closed smile rhyme in a photograph of three young boys. Proustian power seeps from a picture of a lanky girl, shown neck to thigh, her navy blue top turned up at the bottom to nest a small crop of blackberries that have stained her fingers and nails.
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