NEW YORK – Friedrichs Pontone is pleased to present To Be Here, a solo exhibition of new paintings by American artist Joseph Cohen, on view from October 9 through November 14, 2026. An opening reception with the artist will be held on Friday, October 9, from 6 to 8 PM.
Cohen’s practice begins from a simple but enduring question: how do we live meaningfully in a world shaped by change, contingency, and limits? His answer is the title of the exhibition. Each painting is built from countless gestures, accumulated over time. Each gesture marks a moment when the artist chose to remain present: attentive, engaged, accountable, even as conditions shifted. Presence, in these works, is not a mood but a practice. Every mark stays in the painting, visible or buried, and the finished surface is the record of how long, and how completely, someone stayed.
“These paintings are not proclamations but records of showing up, layer after layer, mark after mark: evidence of a decision to participate in the world rather than merely comment on it,” Cohen says.