Lynne Cohen: Selector's Statement
The extraordinary places photographed by Lynne Cohen are perplexing environments. Uncanny and devoid of human presence, these spaces are yet complete with tell-tale traces suggesting imaginative if, at first look, troubling narratives: empty chairs, faux plants, fixtures, hardware, cords, fake wood, sterile walls, instruments, dummies – artifacts and paraphernalia that mark these peculiar spaces to have been constructed for purposeful occupancy.
One cannot help but be curious. Who masterminded these sights? What has happened here … or is it about to? Anticipation is evident on one hand, but on a second look so are layers of Cohen’s wit and irony. Hilarious balloon sculpted chairs in one room temper the presence of a lone black chair in an inescapable threatening space of electrifying effect. Cohen’s detailed observation takes us into complex places we are unlikely to ever enter, except through her compelling photographs.
For more than 30 years, Lynne Cohen has sought out classrooms, laboratories, social and domestic interiors that reveal absurd human impulses. These environments of curious placements have roots in sculpture and found objects. Cohen’s tribute to Dada and surrealism locates her ‘ready-made installations’ photographed in real time, which conceptually unfold both the bizarre and the seductive.
