…(b. 1971) a visual artist living in Los Angeles, is a founding associate of REASArch. His artistic practice and visual research center on matters and methods of appropriation, speculative archives, and fictive art. Informed by landscape theory and aesthetic philosophy; issues of cultural memory and institutional critique; the history and theory of architecture and urbanism; and the intersections of post-war avant-garde art and radical politics, Cohen’s practice ranges across numerous media, from analogue and digital photography to experimental film and video, and from collage, drawing and painting to sculpture, installation, and performance. Cardboard and corrugated, in particular, have long enjoyed a privileged place in Cohen’s work, including his newest project—provisionally titled Anarchijectures—involving sculptural works concerned with waste, detritus, recycling, and the possibilities of visionary architectural form. Cohen is the creator of several large-scale, multi-media, visual research projects and installations, including The Valaco Archive (ongoing, and online at https://valacoarchive.com); Portrait: (Auto-)biography of a Way of Seeing (exhibited in 2016 at the Institute of Cultural Inquiry in Los Angeles); and, most recently, Grupo Anarquitectura (rama argentina), a major ongoing work of speculative world-making. Preliminary versions of the Grupo Anarquitectura project were presented in 2019 at the SALON_02_PLAN group show at UCLA’s Department of Architecture and Urban Design, and at the inaugural lecture of the Graduate Program in Education, Art, and Cultural History at the Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, in São Paulo, Brazil.
G. D. Cohen is also a curator, educator, and scholar of visual culture. From 2012-2020, he served as Associate Programmer for Los Angeles Filmforum, one of North America’s longest-running venues for the screening of experimental film, avant-documentary, and alternative, artist-driven, cinematic art. From 2012-2020, he co-curated the Festival of (In)Appropriation, an international showcase of experimental found-footage film and video for which he now serves as Associate Director. Cohen currently holds the position of Continuing Lecturer in Latin American Visual Culture in the Department of Spanish & Portuguese at UCLA, where he has taught since 2008.
Inquiries for G. D. Cohen related to any of the works featured on this website (some of which are for sale) may be sent to: gdcohen71_at_gmail_dot_com.
CURRICULUM VITAE
EDUCATION
2008 Ph.D. Latin American Visual and Cultural Studies. Harvard University.
2003 A.M. Romance Languages & Literatures. Harvard University.
2001 M.A. Hispanic Studies. Middlebury College International Institute – Madrid, Spain
1993 B.A. (w/ Distinction). German. University of Wisconsin-Madison
EXHIBITIONS AND SCREENINGS
2022
Anarchijecture B. Site-specific cardboard sculpture, Curbside Gallery, Santa Monica, CA.
2021
Cardboard City. Group Exhibition. Santa Monica, CA.
2019
Alienocene: Journal of the First Outernational, Stratum 5 [with Phillip John Usher]. Online HD video stream of Being, Plant [Vol. 1]. https://alienocene.com/2019/06/19/being-plant-vol-1/
SALON 02_PLAN. Group Exhibition and Symposium. UCLA Urban Humanities Initiative.
2017
Intra-. Infra-. Ultra-. Auto-. Four Short Video Works. Solo Screening. Reid Hall, Columbia Global Centers-Paris, France.
2016
Portrait: (Auto-)biography of a Way of Seeing. Solo Exhibition. Multi-media installation (Iteration IV of “With Everything but the Monkey Head” project). Institute of Cultural Inquiry, Los Angeles.
Second Annual Art Exhibition. Group Exhibition. Real Colegio Complutense/Harvard University.
A New History of the Photographic Science and Treatise on its Potential for the Enhancement of Mechanical Vision. Solo Exhibition. Installation. Institute of Cultural Inquiry, Los Angeles.
2014
6th Cairo Video Festival. Group Screening. Medrar for Contemporary Art, Cairo, Egypt.
Electron Salon. Invitational Group Exhibition. Curated by Rex Bruce. Los Angeles Center for Digital Art (LACDA).
7th Videoholica International Video Art Festival. Group Screening. Varna, Bulgaria.
2013
Ten New Artists to Watch. Group Exhibition. Curated by Holly Harrison (LACMA) and Peter Frank (Huffington Post). Los Angeles Center for Digital Art (LACDA)
Valaco in Babel. Solo Exhibition. Installation. Institute of Cultural Inquiry, Los Angeles.
RESIDENCIES/HONORS
2022
Artist-in-Residence, Fondation Fellini/Fondazione Margherita per la Cultura Italiana, Sion, Switzerland (March 2022; July-August 2022)
2018
Honorable Mention award. Single-channel Video, “Self-Portrait with Mother, circa 1976-1943.” Los Angeles Underground Film Forum. Los Angeles.
Honorable Mention award. Single-channel Video, “Self-Portrait with Mother, circa 1976-1943.” Experimental Forum. Los Angeles.
2016
Artist-in-Residence, Institute of Cultural Inquiry, Los Angeles.
2012-13
Visualist-in-Residence, Institute of Cultural Inquiry, Los Angeles.
ARTIST TALKS/PERFORMANCES
2020
“Pesquisa Artística?”/“Artistic Research?” Invited Lecture (virtual event, live-streamed). Interlocuções Internacionais. Graduate Programa in Education, Art, and Cultural History, Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, São Paulo, Brazil. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=akJrgsiv_Vw
2019
“No hay solución. Edifiquemos el problema. Towards a Speculative Genealogy of the Grupo Anarquitectura (rama argentina).” Artist Talk/Performance. Inaugural lecture, Graduate Programa in Education, Art, and Cultural History, Universidade Presbiteriana Mackenzie, São Paulo, Brazil.
2016
“Of Speculation and Experimental Accumulation: Notes on the Valaco Archive.” Artist Talk/Performance. Information Studies Colloquium Series. UCLA Graduate School of Education and Information Studies.
2014
“The Valaco Archive Project: The Speculative Archive as Machine for Visual Thinking.” Artist Talk/Performance. Radical Archives: Conference organized by Artists-in-Residence Mariam Ghani and Chitra Ganesh, Asian/Pacific/American Institute, New York University.
CURATORIAL/ARTS PROGRAMMING
2019
Festival of (In)appropriation (10th edition). Invited public presentation, screening, and panel discussion with film scholar Alfredo Suppia and art historian Jane de Almeida, Universidade de Campinas (UNICAMP), Brazil.
Festival of (In)appropriation (10th edition). Invited public presentation, screening, and panel discussion with art historian Carolin Overhoff Ferreira, Universidade Federal de São Paulo-Guarulhos, Brazil.
The Age of Disenchantments: A Screening of Jaimie Chávarri’s El desencanto (Spain, 1976) and Discussion with Author Aaron Shulman. UCLA Department of Spanish and Portuguese, co-sponsored by the UCLA Center for European and Russian Studies and the UCLA Department of Film, Television, and Digital Media.
2018
Festival of (In)appropriation (6th edition). Invited public presentation, screening, and panel discussion with film scholar Michael Renov. First Forum 2018: “Emergency & Emergence,” Cinema and Media Studies Graduate Conference organized by the USC School of Cinematic Arts and the Division of Media Arts + Practice, University of Southern California.
2016
Festival of (In)appropriation (8th edition). Invited public presentation, screening, and televised discussion with film scholar Constance Penley. Carsey-Wolf Center/Pollock Theater, University of California, Santa Barbara. https://vimeo.com/191083847
2018
Still Moving: Cinema, Photography, and the Real [with Kate Brown]. MOCA (Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles). Filmmaker Domietta Torlasco in person. Screening of experimental films organized in conjunction with exhibition Real Worlds: Brasäi, Arbus, Goldin, co-sponsored by MOCA and Los Angeles Filmforum.
A Personal Journey through Found Footage with Luis Ospina. Public screening and Master Class with Colombian director Luis Ospina. UCLA Department of Spanish and Portuguese, co-sponsored by UCLA Latin American Institute and Los Angeles Filmforum, in conjunction with Getty Museum’s Pacific Standard Time: LA/LA initiative.
2017
The End(s) of Remembrance: Two Films on Holocaust Memory by Sergei Loznitsa. James Bridges Theater, UCLA, with Sergei Loznitsa in person. Co-sponsored by Los Angeles Filmforum, International Documentary Association, UCLA Dept. of World Arts and Cultures/Dance, UCLA Center for European and Russian Studies, UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, UCLA Department of Slavic, East European, and Eurasian Languages and Cultures.
2016
The Early Films of Phill Niblock. Los Angeles Filmforum @ LACE (Los Angeles Contemporary Exhibitions), with Phil Niblock in person.
2015
Landscape and the Body at Work and Play, featuring works by Phill Niblock, Francis Alÿs, and Sharon Lockhart, with Sharon Lockhart in person. Los Angeles Filmforum.
The Thoughts That Once We Had by Thom Andersen. Los Angeles Filmforum.
2013
Experimental Cinema and Landscape. Weekly screening series. UCLA, James Bridges Theater.
Fata Morgana 1 [Guest curator]. Experimental films by Peter Greenaway. Inaugural session of monthly series on collaborative visual research. Institute of Cultural Inquiry, Los Angeles.
2011
“The Indian Boundary Line” by Thomas Comerford [with Phil Coldiron]. Los Angeles Premier. Melnitz Movies Film Series, UCLA.
The Experimental Landscape Films of Thomas Comerford [Guest curator]. Echo Park Film Center. Los Angeles.
PUBLICATIONS/PRESS/MEDIA
2021
Sting in the Tail: Art, Hoax, and Provocation, by Antoinette Lafarge (Los Angeles: Doppelhouse Press). [Reviews of The Valaco Archive and Grupo Anarquitectura (rama argentina).]
Forward by G. D. Cohen to Antoinette Lafarge, Sting in the Tail: Art, Hoax, and Provocation (Los Angeles: Doppelhouse Press)
2020
“Dossiê: Apropriação, Desapropriação, Inapropriação.” Co-Editor (w/ Jane de Almeida). Lumina 14.2. Special Issue, Journal of Graduate Program in Communication, Universidade Federal de Juiz de Fora, Brazil
2019
Translation by Greg Cohen of Daniel Aguirre Oteiza, “Aladdin for One Day/Aladino por un día.” In Antología Bilingüe Po-Ex (Santiago de Chile: Go Ediciones) 16-17.
2018
Photographs by Greg Cohen, in Daniel Aguirre Oteiza, Si en ajena deriva. Epilogue by Eduardo Milán. Colección Poesía Ay del seis (Madrid: Trifaldi).
2017
Translation by Greg Cohen of Sylvestre Byrón, “OMR.” In Ism, Ism, Ism: Experimental Cinema in Latin America (Ismo, Ismo, Ismo: Cine experimental en América Latina), ed. Jesse Lerner, Luciano Piazza (Oakland: University of California Press, 2017) 190-203
2016
“Selections from the Valaco Archive” (Featured Artist). Limn 6. Special issue on The Total Archive, ed. Stephen J. Collier, Christopher M. Kelty, Andrew Lakoff. (Winter 2016): 68-71. http://limn.it/selections-from-the-valaco-archive/
2016
41 Hologrammata [as Vadig de Croehling, in collaboration with Christian Zorka]. Artists Book. Series ANARKHAI: Visual Research for a Post-Historical Age. (Paris; Port-Bou; Tandil: REASArch Editions).
2014
Social Practices Art Network (SPAN). Recorded interview with Curator-at-Large, Carol Stakenas, on The Valaco Archive project.
2013
“f32 1/8s”. Experimental prose poem. Anti- #13.
2012
“Necrologisms” i, iii, v. Experimental prose poems. E•ratio #15.
2003
“Rooms”; “Gnossienne”; “Zion.” Poems. Dudley Review (Harvard University).
2002
“Madrid: A Fragmentary.” Bi-lingual poem (Spanish-English). Annetna Nepo 1.
PRIVATE COLLECTIONS
Domenico Ingenito and Victor Mazzone
Ali F. Igman
André Carvalhaes and Faith Cohen-Carvalhaes
Sarah Abrevaya Stein and Frederick Zimmerman
REASArch 