Ira Cohen obituary
guardian.co.uk | May 13th 2011
Ira Cohen, who has died of renal failure aged 76, participated in the 1960s
artistic counterculture as a poet, publisher, film-maker and raconteur. In the
middle of the decade, he took up photography seriously. At his loft in
Jefferson Street, New York, Cohen built a chamber with walls and ceilings made
from sheets of Mylar, a reflective polyester film. Inside this chamber, he took
portraits of William Burroughs, Jimi Hendrix, Alejandro Jodorowsky and the
steady stream of hipsters who visited the loft.
Rather than photograph his subjects directly, he took pictures of their
distorted reflections on the chamber's walls and ceiling. The surrealistic and
psychedelic results were described by Hendrix as "like looking through
butterfly wings". The photographer and film-maker Gerard Malanga called the
Mylar chamber "a kaleidoscope where the reflections being photographed
constantly changed". Life magazine, in its final issue of the 1960s, praised
how close Cohen's photographs came to "explaining the euphoric distortions of
hallucinogenics".
Cohen was born to deaf parents, Lester and Faye, in the Bronx, New York. He
learned sign language before he could read and write. He attended Horace Mann
school and Cornell University, where he took writing classes from Vladimir
Nabokov. At Columbia University, he became involved in the jazz and avant-garde
scenes of New York's Lower East Side.
In 1961 he boarded a freighter to Morocco where he spent time with Burroughs
and the writers Brion Gysin and Paul Bowles. He embarked on publishing
a literary magazine, Gnaoua, centred on the Beat scene in Tangier. In 1964, the
only volume of Gnaoua was published, with contributions including a preview of
Burroughs's cut-up novel Nova Express, photographs by Jack Smith and Allen
Ginsberg's reflections on totalitarianism. A copy of Gnaoua can be seen on the
cover of Bob Dylan's album Bringing it All Back Home.
In 1966, having returned to New York, Cohen edited and published – under the
nom de plume Panama Rose – The Hashish Cookbook, with recipes ranging from
cakes and puddings to soups and drinks. He also produced Jilala, an album of
Moroccan trance music.
Cohen was a pioneer of the loft scene in the Lower East Side, where the low
rents and vast spaces attracted artists, musicians, actors and writers.
Happenings were organised in lofts, and he became part of the burgeoning
underground which was successfully commercialised by Andy Warhol. Cohen himself
was never able to deal with art or writing in any commercial way. He advocated
that artists and poets should have patrons and be supported.
One story typifies Cohen's haphazard luck. Having disturbed a burglar at his
loft, he struck up a conversation, explaining the Mylar chamber and his
lifestyle. The burglar left but soon returned with a Bolex 16mm film camera and
a box of prism lenses, which he sold to Cohen for almost nothing.
In 1968, using the Bolex, Cohen made the film The Invasion of Thunderbolt
Pagoda, a psychedelic romp that features the Mylar chamber and scenes inspired
by the work of Julian Beck's Living Theatre company. He also produced a
documentary about the Living Theatre's US tour of the play Paradise Now, which
involved audience participation and scenes of mass nudity, leading to arrests
for indecency.
In 1970 Cohen's Mylar chamber photographs were used on the cover of the album
Twelve Dreams of Dr Sardonicus by the psychedelic rock band Spirit and on the
jacket of the first novel by Burroughs's son, William Jr, entitled Speed. Cohen
then departed to Nepal with the Living Theatre actor Petra Vogt and began
a small press, Bardo Matrix, publishing books and broadsheets on handmade rice
paper, including works by Bowles, Gregory Corso and Angus MacLise. He also
published his own poetry, including the collections Gilded Splinters and Poems
from the Cosmic Crypt.
Cohen later directed the film Kings With Straw Mats (1998), a documentary about
the Kumbh Mela gathering in India, and released the album The Majoon Traveller,
featuring the music of MacLise, Ornette Coleman and Master Musicians of
Joujouka, mixed with his readings. In his later years, he was feted by a new
generation of the counterculture, as The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda and
Paradise Now were released on DVD. In 2006, the Whitney Museum of American
Art's biennial featured his photographs of Smith.
I first met Cohen in 1992 when he participated in a Burroughs and Gysin
exhibition in Dublin, displaying his Mylar images and other work. He took a
central role in the event, hosting daily readings. When it came to publishing,
he was enthusiastic and generous. On being asked for a contribution for a book,
he was likely to also offer a piece by Bowles or Anne Waldman which had been
left over from one of the many publications he had edited. In his personal
attire (such as his long kaftan and bead-strewn beard) and his manner, he
always embodied a bohemian intent on doing his own thing.
In the mid-1950s he married Arlene Bond, with whom he had two children. He
later married Carolina Gosselin, with whom he had a daughter. Both marriages
ended in divorce. He also had a son from another relationship. He is survived
by his children and his sister, Janice.
• Ira Cohen, photographer, poet, publisher and film-maker, born 3 February
1935; died 25 April 2011
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