Many years ago I had seen in Aperture, when the magazine was still in small format, exceptional photographs of Peru by a man named John Cohen; John was close to Robert Frank, Kerouac, Ginsberg, all the Beat generation; and especially a respected musician who had created at the time an historical group, “The New Lost City Ramblers”.
His photos are of great beauty, of immense poetry. I dreamt to meet him, and then not long ago, the gallery and house of residence “La Non Maison” in Aix en Provence, directed by Michèle Cohen, agreed to invite him in residence: I was thus able to make these photographs of him, the one holding his famous photo of Kerouac listening to himself on the radio, and the other of a very young singer … Bob Dylan, of whom he was close and that he photographed a lot over the years which even gave the occasion to make a book, “Young Bob”.
We often talked about him, his friend Stuart Alexander and me. May this little text be my tribute to him, him who knew how to see: he is one of the very great American photographers of his time.
So long, John.
Bernard Plossu
