Leonard Cohen: A Glimpse into the Enigmatic Artist from the AGO

Ada Selcuk

Arts & Sports

On the quiet second floor of the Art Gallery of Ontario (AGO), there was a collective sense of awe as viewers gazed at Leonard Cohen’s delicate photographs and precious notebooks hung on royal blue walls. The colour paid homage to his roots, representing both the Quebec flag’s colours and the Mediterranean Sea surrounding Greece, which inspired many of Cohen’s creative pieces.

As a celebrated Canadian poet, painter, novelist, photographer, songwriter, and musician, Leonard Cohen’s artistic talent was unmistakable. In recent years, after the 2021 documentary, “Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song,” and Micheal Posner’s chronicles of the history of Montreal, “Leonard Cohen: Untold Stories,” his legacy as an artist has surged in intrigue.

"Leonard Cohen: Everybody Knows" was the latest documentation of his captivating gaze, shattering songs, and smoky voice. The exhibition, which ran until April 10th, provided a chronological archive of the artist’s multidisciplinary work through two large-scale installations and countless drawings, prose pieces, poetry, and rare recordings and photographs. With loans from the Leonard Cohen Family Trust, Musée d'art contemporain de Montréal, University of Toronto’s Thomas Fisher Rare Book Library, and the Stephen Bulger Gallery, curator Julian Cox gave viewers an accurate and heartfelt portrayal of Cohen’s life.

Born in 1934 to an Orthodox Jewish family, Leonard Cohen's early works often contain religious themes. Inspired by the synagogue services and choirs, Cohen understood the power of language. This is evident in the many small notebooks scattered throughout the exhibition, which the artist wrote throughout his life. Cox states, “[The notebooks are] a reservoir of material that is part of the ongoing campaign to pursue a life with language at its centre.”

After studying business at McGill University, Cohen moved to Greece to pursue a career in literacy instead. However, after his writing failed to succeed, he moved to America to kickstart his music career.

Featured items from throughout these transitional periods, like Polaroid pictures, witty prose in his notebooks, and watercolour paintings, often of mundane objects or himself, provided a glimpse of his mysterious and hilarious self. Notable collaborators were also extensively documented—Elton John, Philip Glass, KD Lang, Iggy Pop, Bono, and others—along with rare recordings of his 1972 European Tour.

One of the most exciting parts of the exhibition was the work inspired by the Buddhist monastery he lived in for six years—he still believed in Judaism, interestingly, even in the monastery. Furthermore, his embracement of modern technology, seen in his illustrations with Adobe Illustrator, further cemented himself, as Cox says, as “a chameleon.”

Cohen’s fascinating fixations at the time, such as guns, militarism, technology, and language, were intertwined with other earnest motifs exploring fatherhood, growth, and language. Inspiring and enigmatic, the AGO’s exhibition was a brilliant way to learn about and experience the work of one of Canada's most beloved artists.