Becky Cohen at Noel-Baza Fine Art
by Noel-Baza Fine Art
Meet The Artist: Becky Cohen this Sunday, January 25th
1:00 p.m. - 3:30 p.m.
Becky Cohen will give a brief talk about her work. Light refreshments will be served. Please R.S.V.P. so we can prepare for your visit.
Photographer, Becky Cohen, resident of Encinitas, is best known for the photographs she made for Robert Irwin Getty Garden, published by The J. Paul Getty Museum, which earned her rave reviews in a wide range of publications. Independently, both The Times of London, and The Los Angeles Times Book Review called her photography for Robert Irwin Getty Garden, “exquisite”. Shot over four years, this body of work also provided images for a second book, The Plants in The Getty’s Central Garden, a plant encyclopedia in handbook form.
An Alfred Eisenstadt Awards 2000 winner, Cohen’s photographs have been collected to major museums worldwide, including The Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; The Bibliotheque Nationale, Paris; The Los Angeles County Museum; The Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; The Museum of Photographic Arts, San Diego; and have been published widely including in LIFE, The New York Times, and Architectural Record.
Noel-Baza Fine Art
2165 India Street San Diego, CA 92104
619.876.4160
noel-baza@cox.net
Comments
As stated above, Photographer, Becky Cohen, resident of Encinitas, is best known for the photographs she made for Robert Irwin Getty Garden, published by The J. Paul Getty Museum, which earned her rave reviews in a wide range of publications. Her images of the baroque gardens designed by André Le Nôtre in and around Paris are also widely known and appreciated. She has a small group of photos at Noel-Baza Fine Art and gave a brief talk at the gallery in January 2009. I was happy to be amongst a group that was there and able to hear what she had to say.
Ms. Cohen spoke of her process for creating photographic portraits and she is articulate and only slides into artist speak on rare occasions. I like particularly her description of a portrait being "the debris of intimacy." She describes developing a conversation to “a point of resistance”. It is this wall that is interesting to her, but also a sacred trust develops with the subject at that time. A subtle agreement is negotiated about what is allowed to be revealed.
In her photos of the garden of by André Le Nôtre, she took pains to create a “mental space” similar to the minimalist landscape she was seeing. This took a certain “pitch of concentration” which is necessary in all great photos. The miniscule observations of life are often a starting point for the visual arts. She described herself as someone who “photographs with her feet”, as she walks through the spaces she is hoping to create with her camera. The perfect cone shaped trees interrupted by the stark shape of a maintenance ladder somehow brings our attention more clearly to the subject.
All artists develop their own set of tools and Cohen referred to these as her “alien alphabet”. But she emphasized that the format chosen for a work is the most important thing to get right. That is the foundation to the work and is fundamental.
It was fascinating to learn about the art scene in the 1970's and how it developed in a conversation between Becky Cohen and galleriest Larry Baza. They had the funding, the energy and the talent to create what sounds like an incredible period of vitality in San Diego. Why did it not last? Obviously funding dried up. Perhaps the general population was not ready to support art then. We hope times are riper now for that to happen if new funding becomes available to jump start the arts from federal sources.
We have several series to look forward to from Ms. Cohen. She would like to show the candid pictures taken during the time of the Community Art Center and when Sushi was in its infancy. She has a series of nudes that would like to see the light of day. We shall watch for further news from Noel-Baza.
Posted by: Patricia, San Diego | janvier 25, 2009 05:28 PM