Book: True Color by Mark Cohen

Written on March 3, 2009 by Bryan Formhals in Books, In Print, Masters

photographs©Mark Cohen via Rose Gallery

Mark Cohen occupies a conspicuous place among the innovators of American street photography. Cohen’s photographs are intrusive, fragmented keyhole perspectives depicting the street-life of his hometown, Wilkes-Barre, PA. Taken in the 1970s and 1980s, True Color is a project originally commissioned by the George Eastman House. Mark Cohen’s color images demonstrate chaotic visual narratives, at times harshly flashed, that denote the artist’s invasive style illustrating this American coal-mining region. A somewhat hermetic visual predator, Cohen deliberately seeks closeness to his subjects and finds a way to ambush partial details, a pink jump rope, a green car, a child’s set of bare limbs.

If you’re in Los Angeles the show runs until April 11th at the Rose Gallery in Santa Monica.

True Color by Mark Cohen [Amazon]
Grim Street by Mark Cohen [Amazon]

Thanks MDM and Joni.