The current exhibition, “Around the World in 92 Days,” is titled after the key work featured in it: a triptych on loan from The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, representing a fantastic panoramic image of the entire world. The work’s title references Jules Verne’s famous book while, at the same time, indicating the time it took the artist to complete it. Looking closely at the painting one notes the great detail and variegated palette which make it a veritable index of the subjects and symbols typical of Cohen’s paintings. One may surmise that his references to political events (the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, World War II) and expressions of technological progress (means of transportation, high-rise buildings, outer space) attest to the artist’s connection to actual reality. At the same time, fiction and fantasy are a major aspect of his works, expressed not only in an emphasis on ornamental and colorful elements but also by depictions informed by unity of times (sunrise and sunset, day and night) and places (Paris, Luxor, New York, and Jerusalem) painted together on the same canvas. Such elements are typical of naïve painting, which often presents a basic, even saccharine worldview while, at the same time, sharply expressing a contrasting potential existential pain by depicting charged, difficult subject-matter. This is the case, for instance, in a series of paintings dedicated by Cohen to his family’s fragmented memories of World War II. He painted on glass a Nazi soldier hitting his grandmother and, mortifyingly, baring her breasts. Another painting shows a group of Nazi soldiers standing in the street, brandishing whips. In a painting that depicts a transport train in marzipan colors, the idyllic landscape is disrupted by the context, intensifying the existential dissonance that underlies this seemingly naïve image.
Cohen’s universal-global vision seems to express never-ending passion and fascination with fantasy and the utopian option depicted by him; however, at the same time, they convey awareness that this worldview is a mirage whose realization lies beyond the reach of the artist.
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