Sincerely L Cohen

No one can build a song like Leonard Cohen. For more than 40 years, the poet, troubadour, and renowned heartbreaker has shed light on life’s darker moments through intensely personal, highly romantic compositions. On December 16th, Los Angeles’s Hammer Museum will present an evening of video interpretations of Cohen’s 1974 masterwork New Skin for the Old Ceremony, curated by Cohen’s 36-year-old daughter Lorca along with Hammer programs coordinator, Darin Klein. Eleven contemporary artists, including Peter Coffin, Tina Tyrell, and Christian Holstad, have contributed a filmic take on one of Cohen’s mournful dirges. For the plaintive “Chelsea Hotel No. 2,” multimedia artist Alex da Corte focuses on characteristic found objects—a stack of bread, a falling broom—to build striking images of tension and sorrow. The curators call it a “new skin for an old work,” a fitting reminder that Cohen, despite his 76 years, is forever young.