LIZ COHEN - The Builder and the Bikini Model

Liz Cohen
The Builder and the Bikini Model Exhibition
El Paso Museum of Art

Photos by. D.Arredondo

Liz Cohen and the El Paso Museum of Art featured real live lowriders and rockabilly music for Cohen’s exclusive art display this Thursday September 18, 2009.
Directors of the El Paso Museum of Art invited local car clubs to participate in Liz Cohen’s art exhibition and hosted the clubs with a delicious dinner, drinks and live music.

Parked in perfect formation at the museum’s front entrance were immaculate lowriders belonging to Lowrider Girl, Amigos, Latin Pride, Klique, and Presence car club while Liz Cohen’s unique photography collection was exhibited inside. The art peices were of Cohen posing as a bikini model with her lowrider, Trabanta-mino that she built from an East German Trabant and a Chevy El Camino.

“The artworks comprise of Liz Cohen’s “Bodywork” series are staged, self portrait photographs that involve aspects of performance art, but that, at first glance, may not be recognizable as fine art. The reason for this misconception is that Cohen, for this series, has intentionally adopted the popular culture look of the pin-up. What is not obvious is that the artist is both builder of the lowrider and the bikini-model depicted”, wrote Christian Gerstheimer - curator in a posted introduction at the museum.
The exhibition was topped off with “Rockabilly Round up/ The Return”, featuring a live performance by Raw Deal.

El Paso’s highly esteemed artist Gabriel Gaytan attended the fine event as a spectator, as well as the familiar Lowrider Girl who modeled by her very own green 1963 Chevy Impala and David Gonzalez’s brown 1939 Chevy.

The photo shoot was conducted by ConvictedArtist.com and coordinated by David Gonzalez of Latin Pride car club right in front of El Paso’s historical Plaza Theater and Camino Real Hotel in the heart of down town El Paso.