REVIEW - MUSEUM HOURS

He speaks to us with a deep and thorough perception of life. He has lived so much of it, and though he may not have (nor never had) a lust to continue to live it, he is content with his lot. Perhaps it is this lack of concern, and capacity for appreciation, that has made his life so full so easily. He notices, even if he does not observe. He imparts to us a sensitivity to the beauty and the joy in the apparently mundane, in not just the awareness but the whole apprehension that nature has designed no single element, no single atom nor molecule any innate importance. And he imparts to us a sensitivity to the beauty and the joy in art, simply art. Johann. She is all, and seemingly only, response and reaction. What defines her is not herself but her experiences, her relationships and her acquaintances. She is enormously receptive, yet she is never changing - an attitude of similar indifference, and lack of concern. You will take her as she is or leave her, but why leave such an honest, pleasant person? She too is content with her lot, though she does reveal a yearning, a desire to experience and to enjoy - enjoyment which she finds in even the loneliest, saddest moments. Anne. She is like a statue, another work of art in herself. We notice that she wears little or no makeup, a plain necklace, her natural grey hair in a simple ponytail, her ears are not pierced. Her expertise on Bruegel is vast, and true. She not only knows more, she sees more, as though she were a character in each painting. She speaks with candour and modesty, and never certainty, as we can detect in her tone. Gerda. To speak nothing of the art itself, exquisite, classic, precious. Or disarmingly, appealingly prosaic. But of course, is it not just life? And is life not both precious and prosaic? Jem Cohen paints as he sees life, and constructs his own art out of what life gives to him. Vienna. Art. Humankind. Life.