Looking vs. Seeing: Montclair Photographer Andrew Cohen

On a recent night at the Willow Street pizzeria, "Ah Pizz'," Montclair photographer Andrew Cohen was reflecting on the mystical qualities of photography.   

“There’s something about looking at the face of a kid and seeing all the ancestors who came before him  . . . it’s transformative," he says. "You can see the passage of time.  It staggers me.”   

Cohen has an extensive body of work that includes lush floral studies, sculptural landscapes, psychological portraits and classical, sensuous figural work.  So what he says next is unexpected. 

“I’m close to legally blind without my glasses,” he confides. “But so much of photography is the mystical, the intuitive.  So much of photography is not the act of looking but the act of seeing.” 

Cohen has dedicated his life to the act of seeing. Myopia notwithstanding, his insatiable devotion to the visual world, both in the physical and metaphysical sense, has been his constant companion.  More than family and friends, it has driven the course of his life. 

He says he was only three or four years old when he picked up his first camera.  “I remember looking into a camera and seeing the world in a frame, through a viewfinder.  I was amazed.  I was hooked.” 

Nowadays Cohen has two cameras, which he takes everywhere he goes.  “I shoot night and day, in the rain and the snow, seven days a week,” he says matter-of-factly, picking up one of the two well-worn cameras lying on the table beside him.  “I met someone from a Kabballah school who was upset because I named my camera Lillith.  Lillith is relegated a demon.  Sophia, my other camera, means knowledge.” 

Symbolic talismans adorn Lillith and Sophia. Affixed to the straps are Cohen’s grandfather’s WWI medal, along with a Turkish coin from a past girlfriend and a Day of the Dead skull, carved from a tiny chunk of turquoise. 

Not surprisingly, Cohen’s unique and often whimsical perspective permeates his imagery.  For him, art does not imitate life; quite simply, life is art. 

Or as Cohen wrote about his own work: 

Every now and then I ask myself, was that just my imagination?  How much of all of it have I simply made up?  Then I remember to take a look at my black & white work . . . and the only question I'm left with is, why do I keep asking? 

Staring out the window of the Montclair café, Cohen discusses his relationship to art. “I am willing to do without to create art,” he says.  “It means sacrifices.  Creating art is a selfish act.  You are married to your art.”  He pauses. “There’s something mystical about this.  There’s something that I’m willing to go hungry for.” 

To support his art, Cohen has done everything from catering to teaching to house painting.  In the fall, he will be teaching a digital photography class at the . “One thing I’ve always tried to convey to my students is to maintain that state of awe,” he says.  

Cohen’s career path has taken  some surprising twists and turns. “I was married a while, traveling around.  I wrote poetry, worked on farms.  I’ve studied different cultures and religions: Buddhism, Taoism, Native Americanism.  I did my own counter-culture thing,” he says. “I also worked at Columbia University for seven years as a photographer in the rare books department.  I photographed Mozart’s musical scores, Lincoln’s letters, medieval illuminated manuscripts.” 

The fact that the Manhattan-born photographer has lived in Montclair for the past twenty-five years is something that still surprises him. 

“I grew up in Manhattan, in Washington Heights.  I thought I would never be caught dead in Jersey.  I thought I’d be living in Beijing or Krakow before I came to New Jersey.”  He laughs.  “I’m fascinated by Montclair, by the history and . . . there’s something about Montclair that just attracts me.  It’s the connections between people.” 

Despite the connections, however, there is a quiet isolation about Cohen.  He has suffered many losses in his life and is the first to admit that art has been his saving grace. 

“Photography -- it’s my drugs, it’s my woman, it’s my music.  What saved me was having one of these”—gestures to his cameras-– “around my neck.  I love collaboration.  With other artists.  With models.  A lot of my work is women.  Most of my work is women.”  Cohen smiles.  “Someone once reviewed a show of mine.  They said, ‘Mr. Cohen’s nudes are tasteful.  His flowers are obscene’.”

Cohen’s recently self-published photography book, “The Garden Dreamt . . .” features his original poetry and “portraits” of flowers rendered in deeply saturated color and an almost lurid sensuality.  in March 2011, writer Tara Chowaniec stated, “I would wager that more than one of Cohen’s photos will make you blush, but I doubt they will make you look away.”  Most of the photographs were taken in gardens in and around Montclair, such as The Mavis Campbell Garden on South Fullerton, the Presbyterian Iris Gardens and The Van Vleck Gardens. 

Copies of the book are available at: acfiftheye@gmail.com. 

In the meantime, Montclair residents may notice Andrew Cohen around town, two cameras around his neck, shooting photographs in all kinds of weather. 

“I never take a photograph of someone without their consent,” he says. “I understand what a powerful tool this is.”