Cover image of the book, depicting Woody Guthrie at the Cooper Union, 1959

In 2001 powerHouse Books published there is no eye, John Cohen’s photographic memoir of his life and times. He is a member of the New City Lost Ramblers, and his photographs hang in the collections of The Museum of Modern Art, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, and the Brooklyn Museum of Art. He has done field recordings, a number of fine albums, and films.

His book includes black-and-white images of Dylan, Allen Ginsberg, Woody Guthrie, and many others. Cohen notes that “over the distance of time, those years on Third Avenue [1957-1964] seem very exciting, but in reality felt mostly desolate and run down. Still, I liked the sober seriousness of my daily life.” It was a time that Abstract Expressionism, Pop Art, and Happenings were gathering steam. During this period, Cohen rehearsed in the apartment with The New Lost City Ramblers and had his first photographic show. The mood of his book is filmic, lush, and gritty.

Recently a friend recommended that we read the book because it reminded him of Roots of the 1969 Woodstock Festival: The Backstory to “Woodstock.” The title, there is no eye, is taken from Dylan’s Highway 61 liner notes, name-checking Cohen.

~ Weston Blelock