Leonard Cohen Artworks
Adam Cohen is fully aware that struggling visual artists will resent the interest Leonard Cohen’s artwork will automatically bring when some of it goes on display here in less than two weeks.
He even understands those who will instinctively grumble about his father’s sketches and drawings.
“There are many artists out there who might (say), ‘What will he do next? An exhibition of pottery? Who else is he going to put out of business or compete with?’ ” Cohen said during a recent interview. “(But) what’s so infuriating to the rest of us is his ability to leave this distinct imprint and a command of yet another voice.”
Leonard Cohen Artworks will launch Feb. 18 and remain on display throughout the High Lights Festival and beyond, ending only May 9. Its four original pieces and 51 prints show impressions set to paper by the poet and singer-songwriter between, by Adam Cohen’s estimate, 1961 and 2004.
The younger Cohen said the subject matter ranges “from the mundane to the sublime – from candlesticks on a table and a guitar in the corner of a room to the exquisite form of a woman he had the luck to have sit for him.”
The exhibition mostly features limited-edition prints, signed and numbered, and produced by a high-end print business owned by Graham Nash. The collection has so far been shown in Vancouver, Toronto and London, England.
There’s plenty of precedent for popular performers dabbling in the finer arts: Tony Bennett, Bob Dylan, Paul McCartney and Ronnie Wood are among those who occasionally moonlight with brushes and ink.
“If you’re good, you’re good, and maybe you can extend your goodness to another field,” Adam Cohen said, likening the naysayers to player haters.
His memories of his father drawing go back to childhood, and “the poor old guy trying to contend with two very young children and distract us on a rainy day. We’d break out the crayons at the kitchen table. It was part of a Cohen family ritual,” he said.
“Being a father myself now, I realize it’s far from a unique endeavour, but he had a gift and passion and interest,” he said. “There are some images (in the exhibition) I’ve seen my whole life – so not only are they dear to me because they’re my father’s work and I love what he does, but they’re dear to me because they’re family heirlooms – they’re artifacts of my little past.”
Leonard Cohen never fancied himself as a visual artist, his son said. “Yet somehow, his work has an inimitable power, something with which artists, historically, have struggled: it resembles him,” he said. “That’s the thing we should all aspire to: that our work resemble us, bear a resemblance to our aesthetic traits and be a truthful representation of our ideal of beauty and our capacity.”
Adam Cohen, a critically acclaimed singer-songwriter in his own right, said that unlike his sister, Lorca, and his mother, Suzanne Elrod (apparently not that one), he “has no skill whatsoever” in drawing or painting. But his new album, due out in three or four months, seems to show his lineage in a more conventional way, he suggested.
“It’s my proudest achievement yet, and it finally bears a resemblance to my father – who I spent my life trying not to sound like,” he said. “But as a result of the birth of my son, which is connected to my family in a beautiful way, and (my father’s) resurgence, I finally had the courage to make a record that dignifies my last name.”
And from either angle – sketchpad or studio – Adam Cohen is clear on “the most important thing I learned from my old man.”
“He always said that just when you want to give up, and you’ve put break-back hours into a song, that’s when you should consider the work having commenced. That’s when you should consider your job having actually started,” he said. “My father said it’s in that exhaustion and sense of hopelessness on the doorstep of defeat that – if you can actually pass that threshold – you get to the good stuff.
“To me, that demonstrates a tenacity, a belief in self, a dedication and a discipline that is awe-inspiring,” he said, “and that has produced some of the most beautiful songs and poems ever written.”
Leonard Cohen Artworks will be on display at the TD Lounge at the Maison du Festival Rio Tinto Alcan, 305 Ste. Catherine St. W., from Feb. 18 to May 9. Admission is free.
Leonard Cohen's son says his dad deferred to k.d. lang at Olympics
MONTREAL — Leonard Cohen's son says his famous dad was asked to perform at the opening ceremonies of the Vancouver Winter Games but didn't see the need because k.d. lang was going to be there.
Adam Cohen says he and his family are big fans of lang, who sang Leonard Cohen's hugely popular "Hallelujah" at the ceremonies Friday night.
He asks what more do you need when you have k.d. lang.
"Hallelujah" was originally released by Leonard Cohen on his "Various Positions" album in 1984.
While it didn't get much initial notice, it has since been recorded by many singers and has passed "Suzanne" to become the most-covered Cohen song.
Leonard Cohen has said in interviews he finds its success ironic because his record company originally didn't want to include it on the album.
Sketches by Leonard Cohen exhibited at Montreal High Lights Festival
MONTREAL — Every so often, when Leonard Cohen wanted a break from finding just the right word while writing, he'd turn his pen to his notebook and sketch.
"The drawings are just something he's done his whole life to interrupt the actual process of writing - a way to do something when you're not writing the next line or the perfect rhyme but you still have a pen in your hand and a paper in front of you," says his son Adam.
Now these drawings have come home to Montreal and are being shown from Feb. 18 to May 9 in a free exhibit titled "The Leonard Cohen Artworks" at the Montreal High Lights Festival.
Three of the drawings are original works by Leonard Cohen, and they are displayed alongside some 50 high-quality numbered reproductions. The works are on sale for about $1,500 to $6,000.
Adam Cohen, who is acting as spokesman for the exhibit, said drawing was always a favourite activity around the poet-novelist-singer-songwriter's home.
"One of my earliest memories of any rainy day is of us waking up and if we couldn't play outside we'd all (in the family) draw . . . at the kitchen table," the L.A.-based Adam Cohen, 37, recalled in a telephone interview.
"He'd break out the crayons and we'd sketch and draw and share images with each other," he said of his father.
"I'd often find the drawings that are now exhibited today, 30 years later, in his notebooks or laying around the house. He refers to them as his doodles."
The sketches have various subjects, although they tend toward self-portraits with wry comments written on them, studies of women, and various objects such as furniture and glasses.
"It's nice because these are actually people that I've known, places that I've been, chairs that I've sat on, smoked my first cigarette in, kissed the first girl in that chair, the guitar I've picked up, glasses I've tried on in the mirror,"
Cohen said.
"It had a particularly touching quality to me to actually see all of these images in one place, especially this particular exhibition in Montreal where all the pieces are hanging and the light from a Montreal street comes in and illuminates them.
"There's a feeling that these images belong in Montreal and belong to Montreal," said Cohen, whose 75-year-old father grew up in the city and still visits regularly.
But Cohen stressed that his father isn't seeking to be recognized as a visual artist along with all his other talents.
Leonard Cohen even says in the welcoming message for the show: "I call my work acceptable decorations."
That's an example of his father's "paranormal humility," Adam Cohen said.
"It really did take endless prodding and insistence for him to finally allow these drawings to be exhibited," Cohen said of the show, which has already been seen in several other cities but never before in Montreal.
Cohen said his father is a huge fan of French artist Henri Matisse, and his artwork has been compared to that of surrealist Jean Cocteau.
"My sister and I would try and correct him when he was doing self-portraits, saying 'Dad, you don't look anything like that,'" Adam Cohen recalled with a chuckle. They'd tell him: " 'Why are you drawing your nose so crooked? Your eyes are bigger.'"
"Of course, now I understand that this was something called 'style.'"
Cohen said he doesn't know why his father chose to sketch, other than he found it an enjoyable way to pass the time.
"The only thing that he's ever explained to me was that he got a great amount of joy out of the meditative quality of doing a self-portrait every morning while he was in this little hotel in Bombay visiting a friend," he said.
"It was a way of chronicling his mood," he added. "(It) was a self-effacing exercise and that was satisfying to him."
Adam Cohen is a singer-songwriter in his own right with a new album in the works. He said the disc, titled "Like a Man," somewhat resembles his father's celebrated work in the 1960s and 1970s.
While he said he was never really inclined to create music similar to his father's, that changed after he had a son himself.
"I felt I had a calling and I felt like I had the courage," he said.
But Adam Cohen, like his dad, stressed he's not a visual artist.
"My sister is quite good at it, my mother is an excellent painter," he said. "It skipped me."
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