Steven Cohen
Put your heart under your feet... and walk! Steven Cohen, 2020
Centre Pompidou (2020) Dans les coulisses avec Steven Cohen Available at: www.youtube.com/watch?v=nJhNtHYd_yw&feature=emb_logo (Accessed 26 November 2020)
Notes from Dans les coulisses avec Steven Cohen:
'I'm not sure that what I'm doing is anything it's called. It's not art; and definitely not dance...it's about losing somebody. It's as much about the loss of life, and the love of life. All performance is ritual. (Something about Self and other)
When I make work...reluctantly it is dance...because my body is in it. I speak with my body.... I try to work in a way which is above language which is meta linguistic.... everybody speaks physique. My body is the primary material of the work.... I am an artist, I use objects... I try to put into the work everything I am... I think matter has soul, in its own way. When you have an object you also have the history of the object, the life ... Things are about our selves. I'm not a hoarder, I'm an archivist and an activist and an old queer.'
Performance and video:
He combines videos of his interventions with performance and objects as he says 'I want some real real. Although (video) doesn't exist and isn't real, it brings reality into the theatre. ... I can bring social realities into a theatrical space.'
One intervention is in an abattoir. There is an 8 minute video of him in a tutu with high heeled shoes like hooves and a tutu. he says that many people leave at this point. 'My presence is the vehicle by which you are present. For me, a big part of art is to take people into territory where they don't want to go. ' Art takes the blinkers off it doesn't put them on.' He says it's meant to say 'Look at us.'... it's not 'an injunction about meat eating or how to behave.'
'Just holding'
When his partner was dying Cohen asked how he could make things better and his partner said, 'Just hold me'. He now tries to make work that is 'just holding on to what's most precious in our lives... and that's love. So the work's not really about death, it's about love... and life.'
Animated installation
Video, installation plus performance. 'It's almost like an installation animated by the presence of a body. The work will survive without me, the videos are the work, the objects are the work, I am the work... The objects are works of art in their own right (eg collaged ballet shoes) but there's something very special about the living body, about performance and about soul in flesh.'
Performance art is powerful:
'This work is about mourning, the absence of a body that held a soul that I loved.' 'Theatre is a privileged encounter with life itself.'
'Art is life...changing, but it can be threatening.... You sink or swim... Walking into the theatre is like walking into the sea... You don't do that casually'
'I entertain with authenticity.... I'm not really after popularity. I'm after integrity, and necessity. I'm old (nearly 60)and I want to make necessary work in this last stage of my life....That's not to say it can't be fun or fabulous but it must be because it needs to be done'
'I'm not sure that what I'm doing is anything it's called. It's not art; and definitely not dance...it's about losing somebody. It's as much about the loss of life, and the love of life. All performance is ritual. (Something about Self and other)
When I make work...reluctantly it is dance...because my body is in it. I speak with my body.... I try to work in a way which is above language which is meta linguistic.... everybody speaks physique. My body is the primary material of the work.... I am an artist, I use objects... I try to put into the work everything I am... I think matter has soul, in its own way. When you have an object you also have the history of the object, the life ... Things are about our selves. I'm not a hoarder, I'm an archivist and an activist and an old queer.'
Performance and video:
He combines videos of his interventions with performance and objects as he says 'I want some real real. Although (video) doesn't exist and isn't real, it brings reality into the theatre. ... I can bring social realities into a theatrical space.'
One intervention is in an abattoir. There is an 8 minute video of him in a tutu with high heeled shoes like hooves and a tutu. he says that many people leave at this point. 'My presence is the vehicle by which you are present. For me, a big part of art is to take people into territory where they don't want to go. ' Art takes the blinkers off it doesn't put them on.' He says it's meant to say 'Look at us.'... it's not 'an injunction about meat eating or how to behave.'
'Just holding'
When his partner was dying Cohen asked how he could make things better and his partner said, 'Just hold me'. He now tries to make work that is 'just holding on to what's most precious in our lives... and that's love. So the work's not really about death, it's about love... and life.'
Animated installation
Video, installation plus performance. 'It's almost like an installation animated by the presence of a body. The work will survive without me, the videos are the work, the objects are the work, I am the work... The objects are works of art in their own right (eg collaged ballet shoes) but there's something very special about the living body, about performance and about soul in flesh.'
Performance art is powerful:
'This work is about mourning, the absence of a body that held a soul that I loved.' 'Theatre is a privileged encounter with life itself.'
'Art is life...changing, but it can be threatening.... You sink or swim... Walking into the theatre is like walking into the sea... You don't do that casually'
'I entertain with authenticity.... I'm not really after popularity. I'm after integrity, and necessity. I'm old (nearly 60)and I want to make necessary work in this last stage of my life....That's not to say it can't be fun or fabulous but it must be because it needs to be done'
Extra-10 (2010) interview : Steven Cohen pour Chandelier Available at: https://www.youtube.com/watchv=nkwJ29fUQyk&feature=emb_logo
(Accessed: 25 November 2020)
(Accessed: 25 November 2020)
Review of Put your heart under your feet and walk exhibition, 2020
'The exhibition takes the form of an installation of sculptural objects and a two-screen projection. In the first gallery, a myriad pointe shoes – among them Elu’s, literally invoking his absence – are collaged together with found objects. Cohen is an inveterate collector of resonant objects; it is perhaps no coincidence that he has settled in Lille, where the annual ‘Braderie’ turns the city into a giant flea market. It was during these festivities in 2013 that Cohen was subjected to a violent homophobic attack, and immediately afterwards, traumatised, turned to making artworks using the objects he had bought. He wrote at the time:
"I worked all night on bizarrely beautiful ballet shoes with animal hooves attached. Some shoes being eaten by monstrous dried fish. My first day at the Braderie I scrabbled insanely for ballet-shoe-fitting animal parts, it was all pre-thought-out ... but I didn't know it would save my sanity in a long shocked sore sleepless night full of bruises and blood I didn't wash off."
The objects are embedded with histories, ideologies, beliefs – a flagpole finial, Hitler paper puppets, vintage photographs of atrocities, icons and crucifixes, purses, sex toys, medical instruments, porcelain ornaments, feathers and hair; many of them, like the arms of chandeliers, taxidermied animal parts and model trees, recurrent images in Cohen’s artistic lexicon.
In the second gallery, the physical reality of death is forcefully reasserted with the screening of Cohen’s performative intervention at an abattoir. The first video is dominated by the whiteness of fat and bloodless carcasses, protective rubber boots and aprons; the second is red with blood, life violently taken and unceremoniously drained into a tub along with other bodily fluids. Precariously navigating this hellish scene, and ritually immersing himself in the blood of innocents, Cohen’s performance embodies a deeply felt pain and empathy for all living, suffering beings.
Stevenson Gallery (2020) Steven Cohen Available at: https://www.stevenson.info/artist/steven-cohen (Accessed 26 November 2020)
'The exhibition takes the form of an installation of sculptural objects and a two-screen projection. In the first gallery, a myriad pointe shoes – among them Elu’s, literally invoking his absence – are collaged together with found objects. Cohen is an inveterate collector of resonant objects; it is perhaps no coincidence that he has settled in Lille, where the annual ‘Braderie’ turns the city into a giant flea market. It was during these festivities in 2013 that Cohen was subjected to a violent homophobic attack, and immediately afterwards, traumatised, turned to making artworks using the objects he had bought. He wrote at the time:
"I worked all night on bizarrely beautiful ballet shoes with animal hooves attached. Some shoes being eaten by monstrous dried fish. My first day at the Braderie I scrabbled insanely for ballet-shoe-fitting animal parts, it was all pre-thought-out ... but I didn't know it would save my sanity in a long shocked sore sleepless night full of bruises and blood I didn't wash off."
The objects are embedded with histories, ideologies, beliefs – a flagpole finial, Hitler paper puppets, vintage photographs of atrocities, icons and crucifixes, purses, sex toys, medical instruments, porcelain ornaments, feathers and hair; many of them, like the arms of chandeliers, taxidermied animal parts and model trees, recurrent images in Cohen’s artistic lexicon.
In the second gallery, the physical reality of death is forcefully reasserted with the screening of Cohen’s performative intervention at an abattoir. The first video is dominated by the whiteness of fat and bloodless carcasses, protective rubber boots and aprons; the second is red with blood, life violently taken and unceremoniously drained into a tub along with other bodily fluids. Precariously navigating this hellish scene, and ritually immersing himself in the blood of innocents, Cohen’s performance embodies a deeply felt pain and empathy for all living, suffering beings.
Stevenson Gallery (2020) Steven Cohen Available at: https://www.stevenson.info/artist/steven-cohen (Accessed 26 November 2020)
From Cohen's Body Scenography workshops:
‘My way of developing a new vocabulary of movement has always been through re-defining the familiar by restricting the body – strange footwear (think platform), cumbersome costumes (think curtains), impeded senses (think lighting). For this I will bring simple objects to cultivate a re-understanding of what we might have become over-familiarised to, and take for granted. We will unlearn things together. We will interpret a language we cannot speak. We will intensify ways of being present and communicative.
I ask participants to bring several (between three and five) physical ‘things’ of their own choosing and which are significant to them, whether that be an item of clothing or jewelry or something out of the kitchen (or the dustbin), a tool, a toy, a piece of furniture – it is really up to each person. If you want to make your life difficult and bring something cumbersome or precious or fragile, go ahead. You will take responsibility for that, not me. Nothing ‘alive’ preferably, as I am there to encourage and nurture you, not to feed your dog or worry about the welfare of a parrot. We must try and spend our energy budget wisely.
For the people willing to risk daring to see themselves, we will also work with videoing sessions and spend some time regarding ourselves ‘from outside in’. Everything that happens in the workshops, and any material filmed or photographed during the work, stays inside the group. Individually and together we will decide if we keep it, erase it, archive it. I have found it best to let it all be consumed and evaporate in the name of new discoverings.
You can take ideas from the workshops and expand them how and where you will. Although I am sometimes accused of making work to provoke, that is never my intention. I aim to convoke, to invoke, to evoke. Work can be fun and I also want to learn. Let’s teach each other how to conjure.'
Cohen, S. 2020a Body Scenography Available at: https://steven-cohen.com/en/workshops/#workshop (Accessed: 3 December 2020)
I ask participants to bring several (between three and five) physical ‘things’ of their own choosing and which are significant to them, whether that be an item of clothing or jewelry or something out of the kitchen (or the dustbin), a tool, a toy, a piece of furniture – it is really up to each person. If you want to make your life difficult and bring something cumbersome or precious or fragile, go ahead. You will take responsibility for that, not me. Nothing ‘alive’ preferably, as I am there to encourage and nurture you, not to feed your dog or worry about the welfare of a parrot. We must try and spend our energy budget wisely.
For the people willing to risk daring to see themselves, we will also work with videoing sessions and spend some time regarding ourselves ‘from outside in’. Everything that happens in the workshops, and any material filmed or photographed during the work, stays inside the group. Individually and together we will decide if we keep it, erase it, archive it. I have found it best to let it all be consumed and evaporate in the name of new discoverings.
You can take ideas from the workshops and expand them how and where you will. Although I am sometimes accused of making work to provoke, that is never my intention. I aim to convoke, to invoke, to evoke. Work can be fun and I also want to learn. Let’s teach each other how to conjure.'
Cohen, S. 2020a Body Scenography Available at: https://steven-cohen.com/en/workshops/#workshop (Accessed: 3 December 2020)
iBall, 2015-2020, from Steven Cohen's website
'Art is often unconsciously prescient.
iBall, initially presented in 2015 in Strasbourg (then in Jan 2016 in Bordeaux and in July 2016 in Oita, Japan) unwittingly prefigured what has come to be in 2020.
It was during the confinement from March to May 2020 that Steven Cohen wished to re-examine his performative act through the prism of the state of health emergency. In this context where distancing and social impediments, constraints of movement, restrictions of relationships, confinement and distanced hyper-communication make the law, the creative act, the arts and culture have become symbols of survival and resistance. However, the appropriation of art by the public has become a worrying problem. It now seems necessary to reinvent the means of transmission, communication and exchange.
iBall is a work about performativity and presence, about being looked at and about supporting that gaze, about interacting and transacting, about being isolated and staying connected … none of which is easily accomplished.
iBall speaks about the commodification and consumption of art and performance… and about the means and modes of communication those open us to. There is no cost for the artworks received, but in a sense, they take place through the form of a transaction. In exchange for making themselves open, available and conspicuous- for taking a position, the spectator participant is rewarded with personalized art… in digital or in physical form.
Both the artist and the spectator/participant (because this is a performance which challenges the notion of the audience as passive and the performer as all-powerful) are clearly apparent and have agreed to open themselves to being observed. Visibility comes with risk and reward.
The artist is confined in a perspex sphere, visible but isolated physically, open to visual communication. The audience is not closely seated, but standing apart and occasionally ambient, moving in a pre-organized manner.
The artist interacts with the audience on a one-to-one basis. An exchange is made. The nature of the exchange is selected by the audience member.'
iBall, initially presented in 2015 in Strasbourg (then in Jan 2016 in Bordeaux and in July 2016 in Oita, Japan) unwittingly prefigured what has come to be in 2020.
It was during the confinement from March to May 2020 that Steven Cohen wished to re-examine his performative act through the prism of the state of health emergency. In this context where distancing and social impediments, constraints of movement, restrictions of relationships, confinement and distanced hyper-communication make the law, the creative act, the arts and culture have become symbols of survival and resistance. However, the appropriation of art by the public has become a worrying problem. It now seems necessary to reinvent the means of transmission, communication and exchange.
iBall is a work about performativity and presence, about being looked at and about supporting that gaze, about interacting and transacting, about being isolated and staying connected … none of which is easily accomplished.
iBall speaks about the commodification and consumption of art and performance… and about the means and modes of communication those open us to. There is no cost for the artworks received, but in a sense, they take place through the form of a transaction. In exchange for making themselves open, available and conspicuous- for taking a position, the spectator participant is rewarded with personalized art… in digital or in physical form.
Both the artist and the spectator/participant (because this is a performance which challenges the notion of the audience as passive and the performer as all-powerful) are clearly apparent and have agreed to open themselves to being observed. Visibility comes with risk and reward.
The artist is confined in a perspex sphere, visible but isolated physically, open to visual communication. The audience is not closely seated, but standing apart and occasionally ambient, moving in a pre-organized manner.
The artist interacts with the audience on a one-to-one basis. An exchange is made. The nature of the exchange is selected by the audience member.'
Cohen, S., 2020b, iBall Available at: https://steven-cohen.com/en/iball-en/ (Accessed: 5 December 2020)
My reflections:
I am very impressed to see how Cohen's work has developed since the days of him wearing the chandelier in the slums of Cape Town. It's still provocative, but I feel as if he has developed much more depth in his thinking. Understandably, the later work, after the death of his partner, has so much pathos attached to it, but I think he manages it well. I am especially interested in how he incorporates performance and sculpture with videos of previous performances. It becomes a spectacle.
Obviously the aesthetics and conceptual framework of my work are very different to his, but I do see similarities between his work and mine:
- presence and absence
- death, the uncanny and the abject, but also the absurd
- provocation
- social engagement
- objects/sculptures
- performance
- ritual
It makes me wonder whether I can use my videos as a backdrop to my sculptures, or another performance, or as an immersive experience for participants? It makes me want to revisit the ideas I've had previously of inviting my audience to become living sculptures by wearing a selection of my sculptures... maybe with a video backdrop?
I'm interested too that Cohen presents Put your heart under your feet and walk as a performance piece but also, separately, as a more static exhibition.
So many of the things he says resonate with me. I have quoted many above and underlined the particular words that have most meaning for me. I'm not sure that I like his work particularly, but it is very unusual and very striking. I absolutely don't want to be him or make work like him but I definitely relate him when he says: ‘Although I am sometimes accused of making work to provoke ... I aim to convoke, to invoke, to evoke.’ (Cohen, 2020)
I am very impressed to see how Cohen's work has developed since the days of him wearing the chandelier in the slums of Cape Town. It's still provocative, but I feel as if he has developed much more depth in his thinking. Understandably, the later work, after the death of his partner, has so much pathos attached to it, but I think he manages it well. I am especially interested in how he incorporates performance and sculpture with videos of previous performances. It becomes a spectacle.
Obviously the aesthetics and conceptual framework of my work are very different to his, but I do see similarities between his work and mine:
- presence and absence
- death, the uncanny and the abject, but also the absurd
- provocation
- social engagement
- objects/sculptures
- performance
- ritual
It makes me wonder whether I can use my videos as a backdrop to my sculptures, or another performance, or as an immersive experience for participants? It makes me want to revisit the ideas I've had previously of inviting my audience to become living sculptures by wearing a selection of my sculptures... maybe with a video backdrop?
I'm interested too that Cohen presents Put your heart under your feet and walk as a performance piece but also, separately, as a more static exhibition.
So many of the things he says resonate with me. I have quoted many above and underlined the particular words that have most meaning for me. I'm not sure that I like his work particularly, but it is very unusual and very striking. I absolutely don't want to be him or make work like him but I definitely relate him when he says: ‘Although I am sometimes accused of making work to provoke ... I aim to convoke, to invoke, to evoke.’ (Cohen, 2020)
Stevenson Gallery (2020) Steven Cohen Available at: https://www.stevenson.info/artist/steven-cohen (Accessed 26 November 2020)
