Barnett Cohen

"Performance artist and political activist Barnett Cohen begins each work by composing an epic score derived from an eclectic array of theoretical, literary, and pop-cultural texts. Translated from written into spoken form, these scores serve as the auditory backdrop for the artist's mesmeric showcases. Onstage, performers disarticulate Cohen's scraps of language in a stylized choreography, as audiences try to hold together transient meanings and fleeting movements in a strange dialectic."

"In the artist's latest piece, anyyywayyy whatever, at New York's Amant, six performers, cast under prismatic lighting inspired by queer nightlife, speak Cohen's words while executing movements ranging from robotic gestures to graceful acrobatics. Cohen always stages their performances in the round, with viewers sitting in the shadows offset by spectacular lighting that illuminates performers outfitted in unique, inspired looks."

"anyyywayyy whatever can't be removed from its political context of creeping fascism, untold genocidal deaths, and ICE kidnappings. Yet the work's title suggests a refusal of these worsening conditions, evoking an anarchist ethic combining individual autonomy with collective mutuality. We enter this space weighed down by the violence ravaging our world, but we leave lifted by glimpses of community built not out of sameness, but the infinite pleasure of difference."

Barnett Cohen composes epic scores from theoretical, literary, and pop-cultural texts, translates them into spoken form, and uses them as auditory backdrops for mesmeric performances. Performers disarticulate fragmented language through stylized choreography while audiences try to assemble transient meanings amid shifting movements. anyyywayyy whatever at Amant stages six performers under prismatic, queer-nightlife lighting who speak Cohen's words while moving from robotic gestures to graceful acrobatics. Performances occur in the round, with viewers seated in shadowed perimeters and spectacular lighting that foregrounds unique costume choices. Direct eye contact and address produce immediacy, vulnerability, absurd laughter, discomfort, and communal, dreamlike moments. The piece situates itself against creeping fascism and violence while affirming anarchist ethics of autonomy and mutuality.

Read at Artforum