LYNNE COHEN | CLASSROOMS

Until April 6, 2024.

Laroche/Joncas Gallery is very pleased to present the second solo exhibition of esteemed artist Lynne Cohen (1944 Racine, Wisconsin - 2014 Montréal, Qc).

Lynne Cohen began her university studies in Wisconsin in 1962 and continued them at the Slide School of Art in London in 1964 where she explored the practice of sculpture, drawing and printing techniques. It was from the 1970s that she decided to devote herself to photography using large format cameras.

From her first photographs, she began to explore semi-private interior spaces such as gentlemen's clubs and lounges which fit into her observations and reflections of the modern world.

Then in the 1980s she turned her attention to more sterile spaces such as laboratories, classrooms, observation and experimentation rooms, places where is transmitted to the culture of governance and the power that follows, which are also spaces conducive to sociability.

All these places are always empty without any trace of a human. She had once explained that as soon as a person is part of a photographic composition, the subject of the work becomes something else and she persisted in this direction throughout her career.

It is interesting to note how these semi-public interior views trace the evolution of contemporary society. Lynne Cohen's work emanates a radicalness that is at once mysterious, melancholic, humorous and ironic.