Ira Cohen was an artist of his time - the 1960s - experimenting with beat and psychedelic concepts and founding numerous movements. An exhibition of his works, showing at the October Gallery, London, until January 21 2008, features his famous works from the 'Mylar Chamber', created in the late 60s at his loft on the Lower East Side of Manhattan.
One of the most surrealist photographers ever, Cohen is known as the father of 'Mylar Photography' and his unique visions have been described as jewels. Among the reflected artists caught in his curved mirror are John McLaughlin, William Burroughs and Jimi Hendrix who said that looking at these pictures was like looking through butterfly wings.
Editor, filmmaker, photographer and poet, Ira Cohen was born to deaf parents in 1935 and by the age of one had learnt to spell out words with his fingers. In 1961 he took a freighter to Tangier, where he was exposed to the cut-up technique by Brion Gysin and William S Burroughs – a literary technique in which a text is cut up at random and rearranged to create a new text.
Cohen went on to publish a magazine devoted to exorcism called Gnaoua, and produce recordings of trance music.
Returning to the lure of New York in the late 60s, Cohen became fascinated with mirrors and created his Mylar images of cultural icons. Mylar is a bendable mirrored plastic that twists and swirls its subjects in strange colours.
The finished results are fantastic photographs of figures bathed in smoke, draped in luscious velvets and wearing lurid makeup. A shaman of multimedia, Cohen explored the whole spectrum of photography, experimenting with dimension, space, infrared and black light.
His photographs have been used on various record covers including Jimi Hendrix, John McLaughlin and Pharoah Sanders albums. Cohen travelled with the Beat Generation but is often less talked about than his contemporaries despite his flair.
Ira Cohen’s Mylar photographs have strong connections to the Dada and Surrealist movements, located somewhere between the work of Man Ray and Max Ernst. They provide a wealth of archetypal images that not only illuminate the real icons of the Sixties, but also the icons of the future.
