Gabriel Cohen

Gabriel Cohen (b. 1995, Chicago) is an artist, writer, educator and occasional curator. His work arises from the desire to touch and to repair. Cohen is deeply invested in Walter Benjamin's conception of historical materialism, treating art-making as a form of political praxis and embodied research.  His co-conspirators are archives, dancers, poets, tissues, and historians, with whom he performs the ancient arts of Necromancy and Animancy. These acts are in defense of a past under siege, as "even the dead will not be safe from the enemy" (Benjamin). For Cohen, the studio is more than a site of production, it is a place for performative acts of revival, subjugation, and endurance. A location where the expediency of a decision must be considered in relationship to its affectual potential, and where desire is a thing always worth chasing. His work at the Ruskin has focused on rescuing the smashed subjects of the historical past and the possibility of finding lovers amongst their corpses. He shouts into the storm, demanding an answer, Whom else may I love?

Personal website.