It Its Itself

Perri Cohl’s first solo exhibition of photographs and videos at THE BLANC challenges the legibility of queer and trans bodies through strategies of obstruction, distraction, and divergent visual logic. The works resist easy interpretation, unsettling traditional modes of visibility and inviting viewers to confront the gaps between perception and imagination. Rather than revealing, Cohl's practice withholds, creating space for ambiguity, refusal, and the complexities of being seen on one’s own terms.

In a series of portraits made within the subjects' intimate domestic settings, Cohl focuses on the peripheries of the body—hints of a throat, curves of a foot, and the top of a head. The visuals resist a heteronormative gaze that dissects and scrutinizes bodies in order to extrapolate gendered expectations, while deliberately mimicking it. Given the ambiguous and fragmented nature of these photos, they relieve the viewer of the need to categorize the individual bodies depicted, giving way to subjects that transcend taxonomies.

The interplay between artist and subject is captured in the form of two video installations. In these pieces, Cohl takes a divergent stance from obscuration, choosing to portray subjects in their entirety. And yet the projections are overexposed to the edge of legibility, thereby both sidestepping and mirroring the burning gaze of a gender-essentialist society. Complementing this, the gallery lighting serves an inverse purpose, concealing rather than illuminating the projected bodies.

Navigating the intricate dynamics of objectification, It its itself challenges a conventional way of viewing that might easily render queer bodies as vulnerable while broadening the ways we perceive their evolving and interconnected narratives.

Artist

Perri Cohl (b. 1992) is a non-binary artist from New York City. They received their masters from Rutgers University Mason Gross School of the Arts in 2022. Their work has been shown at Aperture Gallery, Westbeth Gallery, All Street, Bushel Collective, Spring/Break and featured in the New York Times. In addition to their practice, they teach photography at Rutgers University and the International Center of Photography and curate exhibitions by contemporary artists.