Université du Québec à Montréal
Salle des boiseries
Pavillon Judith-Jasmin
405, Ste-Catherine Street East
Montreal, (Quebec)

Since the 1970s Lynne Cohen is known for her photographs of semi-public places such as waiting rooms, domestic interiors, shooting ranges, auditoriums, courtrooms, laboratories, military facilities, and power stations. Her more-real-than-real rendering of these familiar, hyper-ordered places reveals some strange and disturbing facets. Where does Cohen’s interest in these spaces, devoid of human presence, come from? What steps does she take to gain access to these sites? Once inside, does she have a clear idea of what will be photographed, or does she let herself be guided by the unforeseen? Other questions relating to her sources of influence, her photographic equipment, and the ostensible frameworks for her images are addressed, allowing us to explore the fascinating dimensions of the photographer’s approach.

Lynne Cohen was born in Wisconsin. She taught at the University of Ottawa for a number of years and has recently moved to Montreal. Her works, known in both Europe and North America, have been featured in almost fifty solo exhibitions, the most recent of which took place at the Visor Gallery in Valencia, Spain (2003), the Wilma Tolksdorf Gallery in Frankfurt, Germany (2003), the Olga Korper Gallery in Toronto (2002), the Galeria dels Angels, Barcelona, Spain (2001), P.P.O.W. in New York (2000), and the Museum voor Fotografie in Anvers, Belgium (1998). In 2002, the National Gallery of Canada, in Ottawa, devoted a major exhibition to Cohen’s work, No Man’s Land; the exhibition toured to Oakville Galleries, in Ontario, that year, and to the Musée de l’Élysée in Lausanne in 2003. Her works are included in collections in many museums in Canada, the United States, France, and Belgium. She is represented, amongst others, by the Olga Korper Gallery in Toronto and In Situ-Fabienne Leclerc in Paris.