From Beat Poets to Peruvians

“there is no eye”

John Cohen

Through April 8

Silver Eye Center for…

“there is no eye”

John Cohen

Through April 8

Silver Eye Center for Photography

1015 East Carson St., South Side

(412) 431-1810

Bob Dylan hung out on the rooftop. Jack Kerouac would swing by. Welcome to John Cohen’s New York City loft in the late ’60s.

A photographer, musician and filmmaker, Cohen experienced more than just the Beat movement and Woody Guthrie and Dylan’s folk-revival. He’s also spent time in the hills of Kentucky with legendary bluegrass fiddlers and pickers and went to the tribal regions of Peru to encounter the way of life among a non-Westernized culture.

The Silver Eye Center for Photography’s newest exhibit, “there is no eye,” displays more than 100 black and white photographs by Cohen that chronicle his life by documenting his experiences.

The exhibit breaks Cohen’s work into six series that represent his vast interest in the world around him.

The first section, “Keeping Time,” explores Cohen’s general ability to be amazed by the world that confronted him. These are documentary photos of the everyday in the streets of towns where Cohen lived, including New York City and Philadelphia.

“Gospel Truths” reflects a spiritual interest Cohen had with church gatherings among the black communities in New York. Many are close-up portraits of deeply-emotional singers or people enraptured in frenetic states.

The series also contains shots of the legendary Rev. Gary Davis, a virtuoso folk and gospel guitar player known as the Harlem Street Singer. After making a name for himself throughout the ’50s, Davis became a major influence in the folk movement of the ’60s.

This leads into “To Revive Us Again” – a personal and intimate record of folk music’s emergence onto the national music scene. Shots of a 21-year-old Dylan adjusting his pants and Guthrie on stage, framed by his back-up band, make up some of the more engaging pieces of Cohen’s work.

Not only are these images a great insight into the phenomenal movements of the times, but they also manage to present it with a unique aesthetic. Cohen’s ability to fill the frame and his use of high contrast in most of the images show that he was more than just a man at the right place at the right time with a camera – his compositions have a distinct, definitive quality.

This also shows in his “Art World and Beat Generation” series.

In the late ’50s, Cohen was asked to be the photographer for the production of the Beat film “Pull My Daisy” (1959), which starred Allen Ginsberg in a story written by Kerouac.

The photographs invoke some of the same improvisation that went on during the film. They document the prominent figures of the Beat Generation with a candid and personal touch, which presents the viewer with an intimate account of these mystic writers and artists.

This intimate aspect – present throughout most of Cohen’s work – seems to allow his style of photography to transcend traditional documentary photography. While it encompasses work that’s objective and candid, documentary photography typically carries the connotations of an outsider’s lens capturing the world as it is.

Cohen does something similar, but not as an outsider. Cohen describes his interest in the world developing as a child, recalling the way bubble gum cards affected him.

“One showed a soldier during World War II who was blown into the sea during a naval battle,” Cohen said. “Clinging to a scrap of wreckage, he witnessed the entire Battle of Midway.”

He goes on to say this attracted him “to this possibility of having an inside view without being part of the action.”

This creates the dynamic of Cohen’s photography: They are photos taken by a personal friend with a documentarian’s eye.

Because of his worldview, his images also tell two stories. The first is that of his subjects immersed in their own extraordinary world. The second is Cohen’s own story.

Following his work is like chronicling his life and experiencing things the way he did.

This comes out best in the two series focusing on Cohen’s trips: “High Lonesome Sound” from Kentucky and other areas of the South, along with “Shape of Survival,” featuring a Peruvian tribe.

These not only show the lives of the people in each region, but the photographs have a way of revealing Cohen’s own interest in them and, in a sense, reveal the story of why he was there.

“High Lonesome Sound” focuses on old bluegrass musicians. A musician himself, Cohen sees music as a way to approach the world.

“In traditional societies, when you get close to the musician you are close to the heart of the people,” Cohen said. “Approaching a community through its music gives immediate and intimate access to their deep rooted feelings.”

“The Shape of Survival” takes Cohen’s ideas to a more global level. Here he attempts to attain insider access to a completely foreign culture. The result is quite different from standard photojournalism of non-Western cultures.

His portraits of Peruvian families convey the same personal touch that was there when he photographed Dylan. His ability to connect to a foreign culture provides a rare look into another world, as if looking at studio-shot family photographs.

What remains most exceptional about “there is no eye” – a title taken from the liner notes of Dylan’s Highway 61 Revisited – is that it offers a profound glimpse into the lives of some of pop-culture’s most intriguing visionaries through they lens of one who is a visionary himself.

Cohen will also visit Pittsburgh next weekend to display his other talents.

On Friday, March 3, Cohen will screen two of his movies – “High Lonesome Sound” and “The End of an Old Song” – at the Melwood Screening Room in Oakland at 6:30 p.m.

Cohen will also appear at WYEP’s Community Broadcast Center in the South Side the following day at 2:00 p.m. where he will showcase his Appalachian musical talents. This will be followed by a book signing at Silver Eye.