Bridge Press ~ Vermont
(Brian D. Cohen)

The Fool's Journey
By Brian Cohen
Westminster Station, Vermont: Bridge Press, 2007. Edition of 18.

11 x 14.25 x 1"; 23 leaves. Etchings created by the artist. Printed on handmade feather deckle paper from Papéterie St. Armand in Montréal, Canada. Printed with the assistance of Eve McNeill and Erika Reed at Bridge Press. Titles of the cards handwritten by Tamara Stoneburner of Gracestone Calligraphics. Enclosed in a soft fabric wrapper created by Sara Creighton of Easthampton, Massachusetts. Housed in a black paper portfolio with tie closure.

Brian Cohen: "Fool’s Journey is a book of twenty-three etchings based on the major arcana of the traditional tarot deck. Loosely based on Renaissance cosmography, the book is a visual representation of a philosophical world-view, each card presenting a universal archetype of human experience and a parallel, symbolic element or quality of the physical world. ...

"The tarot originated in the Renaissance as a form of cosmography, a visual illustration of a philosophical world-view. Each card presents an archetype of human experience illuminated through a parallel, symbolic element or quality of the physical world. The progression of cards in sequence represents a journey of discovery, awareness, and insight, from the ignorance and blindness of the Fool (number 0) to the spiritual illumination of the World (number 21). The composition of each etching is based on a varied geometric framework derived from study of the history of art and sacred geometry."
$1800

Pierrot Lunaire
By Arnold Schoenberg
Westminster Station, Vermont: 2007. Edition of 21.

22.5 x 15.5 x 1"clamshell box constructed of sheet aluminum. Contains a folio of poetry and a CD of a July 2003 performance at the Yellow Barn Music Festival for which the artist created the images. Designed by Brian D. Cohen and Dan Carr.

Pierrot Lunaire is Cohen’s visual interpretation of the cycle of twenty-one poems by the Belgian Symbolist poet Albert Giraud that was later composed into an atonal song cycle by Arnold Schoenberg. This book takes the form of a folio of 21 etchings from the dark, caustic, and poignant 1912 song cycle Pierrot Lunaire by Arnold Schoenberg. The etchings are printed twice on each page—in intaglio (etched lines print dark) and relief (surface holds ink and lines are light), a visual analogy to the sudden (and startling) reversals of emotional tone from tenderness to despair in the music.

Review from “Image & Text—Brian D. Cohen” at the Brattleboro Museum & Art Center Summer 2007: “… the brushed aluminum box cover introduces the book. A design of overlapping circles has been gently sanded onto the surface of the box. Then the pages begin to the right of the cover, their placement echoing visually the qualities of Schoenberg’s atonal composition for the poem cycle. The etchings on each of the pages were printed from one metal plate, but one appears to be very dark and the other much lighter, due to the two different printing methods Cohen employed. Each poem has been set in a different typeface and appears in French, German, and English. The poem is printed in its original French, in the German of Schoenberg’s song cycle, and in English translation.”
$2,100