Sad news. Ira Cohen, an Artist and a Touchstone, Dies at 76

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http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/02/arts/ira-cohen-an-artist-and-a-touchstone-dies-at-76.html

Ira Cohen, an Artist and a Touchstone, Dies at 76
By DOUGLAS MARTIN
Published: May 1, 2011


Ira Cohen made phantasmagorical films that became cult classics. He developed a way of taking photographs in mesmerizing, twisting colors, including a famous one of Jimi Hendrix. He published works by authors like William Burroughs and the poet Gregory Corso. He wrote thousands of poems himself. He wrote “The Hashish Cookbook” under the name Panama Rose. He called himself “the conscience of Planet Earth.”

But his most amazing work of art was inarguably Mr. Cohen himself. NY Arts magazine in 2008 called his life “a sort of white magic produced by an alchemist who turned his back on the establishment in order to find God, art and poetry.”

He died of renal failure in Manhattan on April 25 at the age of 76, his family said.

Mr. Cohen made his Lower East Side loft an artists’ salon, then left to spend many years on pilgrimages to Marrakesh, Katmandu and the banks of the Ganges. He hung with Beats but rejected being called one. He was an entrepreneur of the arts who didn’t care about money.

Clayton Patterson, a photographer and historian of the Downtown scene, suggested that if Mr. Cohen couldn’t be easily summed up, that was pretty much the whole idea: “On the one hand he was part of everything, but on the other he was an outsider to everything,” Mr. Patterson said in an interview.
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[Withywindle]

1. Oh NO!

I got to meet him and spend a little time with him about 10 years ago - loved his film about the Kumbh Mela

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2. I just saw him last December and he was in good spirits.

Looked a bit frail, but, still the wit.