Ira Cohen – Kathmandu Portfolio

Ira Cohen produced his Kathmandu Portfolio during a week’s stay in Rotterdam at his friend Gerard Bellaart’s place in 1976. The portfolio of 12 photographs was a joint production of Ira Cohen’s Bardo Matrix imprint (Kathmandu) and Gerard Bellaart’s Cold Turkey Press (Rotterdam). The cover itself was silkscreened black and silver and Ira Cohen’s photos inside were printed offset as 12 separate postcards. 250 copies of the Kathmandu Portfolio were made. Available from Sea Urchin is a copy of the Kathmandu Portfolio directly from the Cold Turkey Press archives.

Ira Cohen (1935-2011) was an American poet, publisher, photographer and filmmaker. Cohen lived alternatively in New York, Tangier, and Kathmandu, and embodied in his wandering and colourful existence avant-garde, beat, and orientalism. Cohen was a unique poet, photographer, and publisher who is best known for his “mylar” photos (e.g. of Jimi Hendrix), his hallucinatory film “The Invasion Of Thunderbolt Pagoda” (1968), and the fragile Starstreams poetry series that he published from Kathmandu in the seventies (e.g. poetry by Angus MacLise and Gregory Corso).

Cold Turkey Press was founded by Gerard Bellaart in Rotterdam in 1970. From 1970 to 1976 Bellaart’s underground press published the first Dutch translation of Charles Bukowski, Ezra Pound’s infamous radio speeches, Heathcote Williams’s Manifestoes, and a/o works by William Burroughs and Sinclair Beiles. Since 2006 Cold Turkey Press has been active again and has collaborated with Sea Urchin on several occasions.