The american photographer Lynne Cohen has consistently explored the mystery of unoccupied space and place. She does not locate or contextualize her photographs, but instead uses the power of ambiguity and absence to question what can and can not be represented in the absence of the human form. The void within these interiors rebounds to allow the space to make itself a palpable subject in the photograph. Each space has a particular ‘something’ that gives it an extra-human energy.
The various periods of Cohen’s oeuvre have explored different types of interiors, first with a playful curiosity and later with a more analytical execution. As the artist herself attested in an interview published in No Man’s Land (2001):
« The shifts in my work are partly due to my exploring different subjects. The men‘s clubs, halls, beauty salons, living rooms and lobbies I photographed early on are much more commonplace and accessible than the target ranges, classrooms, spas, military installations and training environments I now photograph. In the new pictures, there is a more critical edge because I have become more concerned with manipulation and control. Still, my photographs from the beginning have been about various sorts of artifice and deception. I started out probing the boundaries between the found and the constructed, the absurd and the deadly serious, the animate and the inert, and I’ve been probing them ever since. »
Lynne Cohen. There’s always something
Until November 12, 2011
James Hyman Photography
16 Savile Row
London W1S 3PD
