Peru, starting in 1956 (For communities photographed by John Cohen please click here)
John Cohen photographed, filmed, recorded music, and researched textiles among indigenous people in the Andes of Peru for decades starting the late 1950s. His Master’s thesis at Yale considered the weaving traditions of the Andes that extend back to pre-colonial, pre-modern times and which still constitute a living culture. He collected textiles for the American Museum of Natural History in New York City and the Textile Museum in Washington, DC.
Cohen’s first solo photographic exhibition was of his Peru work in 1957 at the Limelight Gallery, one of the earliest galleries in New York to focus on photography. His second exhibition in 1958 at the Yale University Art Gallery paired Cohen’s photographs with Anni Albers' weavings. This was one of the first photographic exhibits to be mounted at Yale’s Gallery.
In 2010, Steidl published an impressive multi-volume set encompassing Cohen's wide-ranging contributions titled Past Present Peru: Photos, Music, Films. His films have been shown at the Margaret Mead Film Festival, on PBS NOVA, and BBC TV; and his recordings, one of which (a Peruvian wedding song) was chosen for inclusion on the Voyager spacecraft, are available from Smithsonian Folkways and Arhoolie Records.
