Jens Köhler

I use art to celebrate and decorate my time as an alive person.

I have daily art practices, weekly art practices, and whenever-they’re-done art practices. I start first thing, before coffee, with a photo and two quick gestural works on paper. These are done before I check my phone. Throughout the day, I work on larger pieces. I organize the “shoulds” and “oughtas” and bills and chores around my art tasks. Before I go to bed, I make a good night art gesture.

Repetition is the key. I feel a bit like a monk, with my art actions being prayers of seeing, feeling, and noticing.

Things I have made: books (hand-made and printed), poetry, songs, works on paper, zines, performances, productions, short film, audio drama, photographs.

If Art is a kind of food that nourishes us — both maker and audience — then that makes me a kind of urban farmer, forager, and home cook. Welcome to my table.

Jens Köhler, founder and president of Urgent Beauty Squad LLC, is a poet and cultural practitioner based in Los Angeles and Toronto.

Some Jens inventory.

PUBLICATIONS

The Lonely Impulse, Issue 0001: “ART POWER: 1) BLUF,” 2020.

Now We Are Seven, poetry, with illustrations by Mike Bailey. Los Angeles; Urgent Beauty Squad, 2017

The Emu Dialogues (co-authors: Luciano Iacobelli and Robert Marra), poetry. Toronto: Quattro Books, 2015

But Sir! (a passionate friendship in five chapters), (co-author / co-illustrator Luciano Iacobelli), a hand-made book, Toronto: LyricalMyrical Press, 2005.

Some of these publications are in collections like: Stanford University, University of Alberta, University of Wisconsin - Madison, Western University, University of Toronto, Library and Archives Canada / Bibliothèque et Archives Canada, Queen's University Documents Library, Princeton University Library, Harvard College Library, Yale University Library, Dalhousie University Killam Memorial Library, Los Angeles Public Library.