Cohen is a Montreal-based photographer whose artistic practice draws on the history of art, performance, and feminist theory. Part of a broader postmodern movement in photography in the 1970s, Cohen appropriated historical artistic techniques in her series of motion studies, including The Rite Matinal, 1977, and After Bacon/Muybridge, 1980. In An Extended and Continuous Metaphor, 1983–86, Cohen challenges the traditionally male and female roles of artist and subject by performing both for the camera.

Image: Sorel Cohen, An Extended and Continuous Metaphor No. 6, 1983, three dye-coupler prints, centre panel: 179.5 x 205 cm; side panels: 119 x 119 cm each, National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa. © Sorel Cohen / CARCC Ottawa 2023.

For further reading, see:

Cohen, Sorel. Sorel Cohen. Montreal: Musée d’art contemporain de Montréal, 1986.

Sloan, Johanne. “Relations, 1988: Photographic, Postmodern, Feminist.” Journal of Canadian Art History 36, no. 1 (2015): 181–201.