Patriarch 1962

Misch Kohn’s "Patriarch" is a monochromatic print, a head composed of frantic marks. There is so much going on! The entire form is made up of what looks like swirling masses and textured blobs. It gives me the impression of looking at some kind of strange organic matter through a microscope. The tonal range of the image is mostly mid-gray, with very little pure white or deep black. This close tonal range allows Kohn to create a very tight space, a sort of interior world. It's interesting how our mind tries to find a coherent image or narrative within the chaos of marks and textures. I like how, in the end, the image keeps dissolving back into abstraction. Kohn really embraces the ambiguity of mark-making and the multiple ways an image can be interpreted, a bit like what you might see in the work of Cy Twombly. For me, the piece embodies the idea of art as an ongoing conversation and exchange of ideas across time.