Norman Cohn
Norman Cohn was born in New York in 1946 and received a B.A. from Cornell University in 1968. He has been an independent video artist for twenty-five years with exhibitions including MOMA, New York, National Gallery of Canada, Art Gallery of Ontario, Dokumenta 7, Germany, ICA London and others. In 1990 Cohn was awarded a Guggenheim fellowship.
By 1979 Cohn had immigrated to Prince Edward Island and initiated his video portraits of children, Children in Hospital (1979-1980), including Peter in Long Term Care. In 1980-81 he produced a series of portraits of Canadians entitled How We Lived and in 1983 he released In my end is my beginning, a five part three-hour video study of residents in an old age home in Springdale, Newfoundland. These videos were included in a solo exhibition of sixteen videotapes, Norman Cohn: Portraits, first presented in 1983 by the Art Gallery of Ontario, and then traveling to six other Canadian and American museums. In 1986 Cohn completed Quartet for deafblind, a feature-length experimental collaboration with a nine-year old deaf and blind boy, one of six Canadian works selected for Dokumenta 7 in Kassel, Germany, and recently broadcast by TVOntario. In 1987-88, prior to moving permanently to Igloolik, Cohn was artist-in-residence at First Bank Minneapolis, where he produced Bank, an experimental video "process" work involving seventy videotapes and fifty bank employees.
Short bio:
Born in 1946 in New York, Norman Cohn travelled to Igloolik in 1985 to meet Zacharias Kunuk and Paul Apak after seeing videos they had made while working for the Inuit Broadcasting Corporation. In 1990, assisted by a Guggenheim Fellowship, Cohn moved to Igloolik, where, with Kunuk, Apak and Pauloosie Qulitalik, he co-founded Igloolik Isuma Productions, and helped develop Isuma’s style of “re-lived” cultural drama by adapting the authenticity of video observation to the art of Inuit storytelling. Cohn’s experimental video work began in 1970 in the U.S.; he immigrated to Canada in 1976 and became a Canadian citizen in 1981. In 1983, Cohn’s exhibition of 16 videos, Norman Cohn: Portraits, opened at the Art Gallery of Ontario, the National Gallery of Canada, Vancouver Art Gallery, Musée d’art contemporain de Montreal and 49th Parallel Gallery in New York. In 1987, his experimental non-fiction feature Quartet for Deafblind was shown at Documenta 8.
Artist Code: 116
Videography
ISUMA INUIT CLASSIC COLLECTION: 1987-2009
2015, colour, Inuktitut, French & English subtitles
2012, 30:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut with English Subtites
Qapirangajuq: Inuit Knowledge and Climate Change (Le savoir inuit et les changes climatiques)
2010, 54:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut, with English or French subtitles
2009, 07:23 minutes, colour, No dialogue
2009, 46:45 minutes, colour, Inuktitut w English Subtitles
2007, 45:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut
Unikkaat Sivunittinnit (Messages from the Past) CD
2007, colour
Atanarjuat the Fast Runner (Soundtrack CD)
2007, colour
2007, colour
Exploring Inuit Culture Curriculum Gr. 4-6
2007, colour
2006, 08:47 minutes, colour, English and Inuktitut
Inuit Piqutingit (What Belongs to Inuit)
2006, 49:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut with English subtitles
The Journals of Knud Rasmussen
2006, 112:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut, w English subtitles, w/ French subtitles
2006, 46:49 minutes, colour, English
2005, 48:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut with English, French subtitles
2004, 48:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut with English, French subtitles
2003, 52:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut with English subtitles
Atanarjuat the Fast Runner (companion book)
2001, colour
2001, 161:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut, English subtitles
2001, 52:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut w English subtitles only
2001, 52:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut w English subtitles
Nanugiurutiga (My First Polar Bear)
2000, 48:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut with English subtitles
1999, 51:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut w English subtitles
1998, 52:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut w English subtitles
Episode 13: Quviasukvik (Happy Day)
1995, 28:50 minutes, colour, Inuktitut w English or French subtitles
1995, 28:50 minutes, colour, Inuktitut w English or French subtitles
Episode 11: Tuktuliaq (Caribou Hunt)
1995, 28:50 minutes, colour, Inuktitut w English or French subtitles
Episode 10: Qaisut (Polar Bear Island)
1995, 28:50 minutes, colour, Inuktitut w English or French subtitles
Episode 9: Aiviaq (Walrus Hunt)
1995, 28:50 minutes, colour, Inuktitut w English or French subtitles
Episode 8: Avamuktulik (Fish Swimming Back and Forth)
1995, 28:50 minutes, colour, Inuktitut w English or French subtitles
Episode 7: Qulangisi (Seal Pups)
1995, 28:50 minutes, colour, Inuktitut w English or French subtitles
1995, 28:50 minutes, colour, Inuktitut with English or French subtitles
1995, 28:50 minutes, colour, Inuktitut with English or French subtitles
Episode 4: Tugaliaq (Ice Blocks)
1995, 28:50 minutes, colour, Inuktitut with English or French subtitles
Episode 3: Qarmaq (Stone House)
1995, 28:50 minutes, colour, Inuktitut with English or French subtitles
1994, 28:50 minutes, colour, Inuktitut with English or French subtitles
Episode 1: Qimuksik (Dog Team) - Nunavut
1994, 28:50 minutes, colour, Inuktitut with English or French subtitles
1993, 30:30 minutes, colour, Inuktitut with English or French subtitles
Nunaqpa (Going Inland) (Marcher dans les terres)
1991, 58:15 minutes, colour, Inuktitut with English or French subtitles
Qaggiq (Gathering Place) (Lieu de Rassemblement)
1989, 58:00 minutes, colour, Inuktitut (with English or French subtitles)
1986, 80:00 minutes, B&W, English
Snaps (In the End is my Beginning Prt. 5)
1983, 53:00 minutes, colour, English
David Wells (In the End is my Beginning, Part 3)
1983, 36:00 minutes, colour, English
Lucy Brown (In the End is my Beginning Prt. 2)
1983, 38:00 minutes, colour, English
Joseph Verge (In the End is My Beginning Prt.1)
1983, 36:00 minutes, colour, English
Sunday Afternoon in the Infirmary (In the End is my Beginning Prt.4)
1982, 27:00 minutes, colour, English
1981, 45:00 minutes, colour, English
1980, 52:00 minutes, colour, English
1980, 56:00 minutes, colour, English
David MacDonald: Part 3: Election Day
1980, 31:00 minutes, colour, English
David MacDonald: Part 2: The Island Campaign
1980, 60:00 minutes, colour, English
David MacDonald: Part 1: Ottawa
1980, 33:00 minutes, colour,, English
Willis Reid, Harold Pottle, Harbour Pilots
1979, 39:00 minutes, colour, English
1979, 34:00 minutes, colour, English
Michelle on the Day of Surgery
1979, 29:00 minutes, colour, English
1979, 29:00 minutes, colour, English
1979, 29:00 minutes, colour, English
Critical Writing
by et al. Brooklyn: COUSIN Collective, 2024.
by . Journal of American Folklore, Summer 2013, v. 126.
by . The Globe and Mail, Sept. 6, 2006.
by . The Globe and Mail, May 18, 2001.
by . The Globe and Mail, Sept. 13, 2000.
by . Nunatsiaq News, Aug. 18, 2000.
by . Minneapolis: Walker Art Centre, 2000.
by . Toronto: YYZ Books, 1996.
by and . Bank: Norman Cohn: A Video Portrait Process, 1989. Minneapolis: First Bank System, Division of Visual Arts, 1989.
by . 2nd International Video Demonstration, In Montbelliard, France, 1984.
by . 49th Parallel, 1984. New York: 49th Parallel, 1984.
by . The Second Link - Viewpoints on a Video in the Eighties, 1983. Banff: Walter Phillips Gallery, 1983.
by . Fuse, Nov. 1981, v. 5, no. 8 & 9.
by . Fuse, Mar. 1981, v. 5, no. 2+3.