Sorel Cohen

Cohen’s feminist stance in her art was triggered by an interview between Lucy Lippard and Judy Chicago which she read in Artforum. She explains in her master’s thesis: “I realized then, that if I was going to be making artworks for the rest of my life it had better have something to do with me as a person, and in particular, as a woman.”[10] Cohen used photography to combat stereotypes of women, as well as subvert society's beliefs around a what a woman's role is. By placing herself both behind and in front of the camera, Cohen presents a commentary on the representation of women in these roles.[3]

A published book featuring her work Divans maudits (with a text by Gérard Wacjman) shows how Cohen was strongly influenced by psychoanalytical perspectives. Some her most well-known work features primarily empty beds and couches. The photographs carry another strong theme that is found in many of Cohen’s works as well, the theme/idea of absence. By photographing these empty couches and beds, objects that are primarily only seen as important when they are full of people or things, Cohen aims to capture what is missing.[8]

This series of muslin sculptures echoes the grid as an emblem of modernism.[11] The handcrafted quality of the fabric sculptures however recalls traditional women's work and defies the modernist and masculine pursuit of uniformity and repetition.[12] From the sculptures in The Grid series, the artist also creates contact prints on canvas using techniques such as cyanotype and Van Dyke brown. When sewn together, these prints replicate the sculptural works in a 1:1 scale, resembling a "shadow".[13] This series thus marks a transition between the artist's sculptural and photographic practice.

In 1977, Cohen begins a series of works (color photographs, video, cyanotypes) based on the action of making a bed.[14] Among these, the series of photographs Le rite matinal shows the artist performing this action repeatedly in front of the camera with an impression of movement obtained by a slow shutter speed and a long exposure time. By performing this banal action in front of the camera, the artist links women's domestic work with their artistic work, often neglected in art history.[15]

The series The Shape of a Gesture (originally titled Domestic Activity as Painterly Gesture[14]) shows the artist in action as she cleans a window with a colored cloth. This work refers to abstract expressionist painting by substituting the flat surface of the painting with that of the window and subverting the painterly gesture through a domestic activity traditionally reserved for women.[16]

In After Bacon / Muybridge, Cohen looks at the work of painter Francis Bacon (artist) and uses photographic methods, such as long exposure and slow shutter speed to achieve a blurred effect. In this collection, Cohen also references the work of Eadweard Muybridge, who pioneered the study of motion in photography. Cohen appropriates these works from major male figures in art history from a feminist perspective in a way that is reminiscent of the conceptual work of Sherrie Levine around the same time.[17]

With the series An Extended and Continuous Metaphor, Cohen abandons the sequential or grid form in favor of hierarchically organized polyptychs, some reminiscent of Flemish altarpieces.[18] The photographs show the artist simultaneously performing the roles of artist, model, and viewer through multiple exposures in an all-black space. This non-space refers to an idealized conception of the artist's studio: to that effect, the title of the series alludes to the painting The Painter's Studio: A real allegory summing up seven years of my artistic and moral life by Gustave Courbet (1855).[11]

This collection features a series of nine photographs exploring themes of absence and the relationship between psychoanalyst and patient, through depictions of psychoanalyst offices.[8]

This collection features photographs of empty psychoanalyst consultation rooms of in Quebec. The focus of these photographs are the empty couches (or divans), allowing Cohen to present the idea of absence as something that is wholly present in the scene. Like Wounds of Experience this series is characterized by the inclusion of text, with words inscribed below each of the photographs referring to different symptoms as described by psychoanalysts.[19]

Presented as a sequel to Divans Dolorosa, this collection features photographs of handkerchiefs with psychoanalytical descriptions attached to them.[20]

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