Lynne Cohen: Occupied Territory

Occupied Territory

Photographs by Lynne Cohen

Lynne Cohen has been photographing empty – family rooms, offices, laboratories, and other built environments since the early 1970s. For over forty years she has been driven by one question more than any other – what are these places without people in them? Looking at images of shag carpeted dens, vinyl siding show rooms, corporate lobbies, we are pressed to ponder her question and to wonder – do these rooms retain their purpose without us?

The spaces Cohen photographs seem uncomfortable, and to a degree lost without a receptionist, janitor, or executive. By looking more closely at the work however, we come to realize the places photographed were built by us are actually portraits of us in absentia. Cohen tricks us with a well-mastered art of sleight of hand into making us see something that was once there, then gone, and now back again. By blurring the lines between reality and representation, and by combining light touch with a pointed sense of humor Cohen quietly lets us in on the joke.

Born in Racine, WI, Lynne Cohen currently resides in Montreal, Canada. She has had major exhibitions in Canada and France accompanied by books (Lost and Found, No Man’s Land, Camouflage and Cover) as well as numerous one-person shows in the US, Germany, France, Spain, Cuba, Switzerland, Belgium and Austria. Along with six books to her name are the soon to be published Nothing is Hidden by Steidl and Aperture’s reprint of Occupied Territory.

We hope that you can join us for the opening reception Friday December 4th at 5:00pm or soon afterwards to enjoy this highly entertaining and thought-provoking exhibition.