You are right John Cohen-quazimoto was right-mozart was right…there is no eye-there is only a series of mouths-long live the mouths…your rooftop-if you don't already know-has been demolished…."
-Bob Dylan
   

 

 

Publications released since 2002

“Young Bob” John Cohen’s early photographs of Bob Dylan,” powerHouse books, 2002

“There Is No Eye” second edition with statement by Patti Smith, powerHouse books 2002

“The Shape of Survival” Steven Daiter Gallery catalog, vintage Peru images from 1957 exhibit at “Limelight Gallery”

Photos published in “Hip: A History” by John Leland

Photos published in “New Art World” by Jed Perl

B&W, magazine for collectors of fine photography

There Is No Eye: John Cohen Photographs

powerHouse Books
Clothbound, 8.125 x 11.125 inches,
200 pages, 127 duotone and 39 four-color photographs
ISBN: 1-57687-107-X

"Be it in the Peruvian Andes, Kentucky bluegrass country, the Gospel churches of Brooklyn, or in Greenwich Village with Bob Dylan and the Beat Generation, John Cohen's vision transcends history, even when it distills the spirit of a period and a place. There Is No Eye, Cohen's first monograph, is a guided tour of the worlds of outsider artists, poets, and musicians. Cohen's lyrical stories of the cultures encountered cap his stirring, quiet photographs taken over the past five decades."
-powerHouse catalog, fall 2001

Includes photographs of Robert Frank, Red Grooms, Jack Kerouac, Allen Ginsberg, Gregory Corso, Roscoe Holcomb, Doc Watson, Muddy Waters, Pete Seeger, Woody Guthrie, The Stanley Brothers, Bill Monroe, and Bob Dylan, among others.

"You can look at John Cohen's book and see through very familiar eyes: the New York City eyes of Helen Levitt and Walker Evans, Evans' country eyes, the highway eyes of Robert Frank, even Margaret Bourke-White's doubting eyes in Holiness churches….John Cohen's argument is that the picture exists outside of the photographer's intentions, or even his desires….Up against these eyeless pictures, those of Evans, Frank, Levitt, and Bourke-White can seem almost propagandistic. That is, they make arguments; you are aware that the photographer wants to tell you something, to convince you of something, to accept a certain point of view. Here there is no point of view. There is something else; I don't know what to call it, so I won't try."
-Greil Marcus

Purchase There Is No Eye: John Cohen Photographs through Amazon.com
View images from the book
Read review from New York Times Arts & Leisure November 18, 2001 [LINK TO REVIEW


Slide presentation and booksigning
November 27, 2001
Yale University School of Art & Design
New Haven, CT

Slide presentation and booksigning
December 6, 2001
Corcoran Gallery of Art, 500 17th Street, NW, Washington, D.C. 20006

Opening reception
January 17, 5:30 - 7:30 pm
Photographic Resource Center at Boston University
602 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215
617-353-0700

Exhibition: There is No Eye
Jan 18 - March 1, 2002
Photographic Resource Center at Boston University
602 Commonwealth Avenue, Boston, MA 02215
617-353-0700

Exhibition: There is No Eye
July 6-August 25, 2002
Chicago Cultural Center,
78 East Washington Street, Chicago, IL 60602.
312 744 8942

Exhibition: There is No Eye
Jan 18-March 23, 2003
Georgia Museum of Art
University of Georgia
90 Carlton Street, Athens, Georgia, 30602
706 542 0463

Exhibition: There is No Eye
June 17-August 8, 2003
Weatherspoon Art Gallery
University of North Carolina
Greensboro, NC 27402
336 334 5770