MARK COHEN
‘Grim Street’
Third Floor Gallery, Cardiff
08.12.2012 - 27.01.2013
Pennsylvania’s rust belt. In Mark Cohen’s photographs the overcast days feel as dark as nights. Worn brick walls and pavements feel tired and grey. The streets, back alleys and yards are inhabited by shadows and traces of human presence. Occasionally we find a full on confrontation with the inhabitants of Wilkes-Barre. It is as if the camera was an alien probe in search of the true mood and feeling of this industrial town.
Mark Cohen’s Grim Street is a seminal piece of 1960-1970s street photography. Leaving the much walked paths of its predecessors, but not the town of Wilkes-Barre, Cohen approaches photography in a truly confrontational manner, focusing often on the abstract patterns, textures and gloomy atmosphere that results from fast grab shots. Radical crops, disorienting closeups, a touch of of-kilter humour and the strong contrast resulting from the use of flash all took the art world by storm. In one photograph, against a dark and sinister background a woman’s face is occluded by a voluminous bubble gum and a hand seems to come off her head, in another a group of women all hide their faces from the encounter with the camera.
Mark Cohen has lived and photographed in Wilkes-Barre for his whole career. While running a commercial photography studio in the small city, his artistic career diverted into exhibitions at MoMA, George Eastman House, and other prestigious international museums and galleries. He has also been twice awarded the Guggenheim Fellowship. Out of his published books Grim Street and True Color are two of the most influential.
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