Contributed by Joe Fyfe / A large souvenir brochure accompanied Leonard Cohen’s “I’m Your Man” tour in the late 1980s. It included, among an assortment of photographs of him and reproductions of his sketches, a thousand-word essay titled “How To Speak Poetry” that has had a second life on the internet. In this singular artistic manifesto, Cohen admonishes singers that they are “among the people. Then be modest. Speak the words, convey the data, step aside.” On the next page, he tells them to “think of the words as science, not as art. They are a report.” If an audience appreciates the event, “it will be in the data and the quiet organization of your presence.” Su-Mei Tse’s current exhibition at Peter Blum Gallery seems to freshly embody Cohen’s abiding concern with presentation and how an artist must address an audience.
