Wednesday, September 24

MEDIA SHAMANISM

Films & Poetry of Ira Cohen

EV Associate Curator, Carl Hanni guides us through the life and work of poet, photographer, filmmaker, publisher and legendary shaman/bohemian Ira Cohen. Ira Cohen lived and created a singular body of work in New York City, Tangier and Katmandu from the 1960s until his death in 2011. His contemporaries included William S. Burroughs, Angus MacLise (Velvet Underground), Gerard Malanga, Charles Henri Ford and Paul Bowles. EV will screen Cohen’s transcendent The Invasion of Thunderbolt Pagoda and Kings With Straw Mats. In Kings With Straw Mats, Ira Cohen is both participant and observer to an extraordinary parade of people on pilgrimage into the heart of one of India’s greatest sacred celebrations, the Kumbh Mela. With the eye of a filmmaker and the voice of a poet, Cohen introduces an array of holy men as they gather for the event, which occurs only once every 12 years.