Ethan Cohen talking to our group

If you don’t know about Ethan Cohen and his gallery, you should. In 1987, he was the first gallerist in New York to show Chinese Contemporary Art. And despite the downturn because of the economy, he is still promoting his Asian artists. Currently, he has a show of Ushio Shinohara’s work, a Japanese artist, born in 1932, who began to create Pop works in the 1960s. He collaborated with Rauschenberg and Jasper Johns on one of their visits to Japan. Johns even owns a work by Shinohara.

Shinohara recreating "Coca Cola Plan"

In the 1950s the Gutai group was the first to make experimental art in Japan. Shinohara had a mohawk and in 1957 c0-founded of a movement called Neo-Dada to challenge the Gutai group. He would place paper on the wall and use his shirt to paint with. This was true “action painting.” Unlike Pollock, Shinohara was not concerned with composition but the physical act of making the work. Only now do people recognize how important artists from this time period are. He has worked in his studio in DUMBO for many years and worked in all kinds of media. He uses boxing gloves to create works on canvas (he used to work on paper so many of his works from the 1960s were destroyed). He also does imitation art. For example, in the the early 1960s, he saw a photo of Rauschenberg’s combine “Coke Bottles” and he replicated it using his imagination when materials failed him or when he couldn’t figure out what exactly Rauschenberg had used. He made many of these but only two still survive. Last week at the gallery, he demonstrated for us how he had created the “Coca Cola Plan” works. Shinohara and his wife were adorable explaining and creating this work. She translated as he worked. It was really a treat and I am definitely interested in learning more about him and his work. He currently has four works in MoMA’s permanent collection and Ethan is working on getting other museums to purchase his works so that he can cement his place in art history.