Jens Köhler

  I am an itch-based artist. 

Things itch. I scratch... as a poet, self-taught visual artist, performer, producer, and culture worker. 

I have a daily studio practice using available tools and materials: words, works on paper, and photography. 

Being a parent and living through Covid reinforced my faith in the value of weaving art into everyday life. I record songs for people on their birthdays. I make comics for audiences of one. I revel in my humble power to greenlight any zero-budget project.

Sometimes only a collaboration will scratch the itch. Music, theater, film — these require a more resources to greenlight. 

And, some itches must be scratched collectively: war and peace; the social construction of money; the repair of glaciers; making a world where artists can always pay the rent. There is less talk of green lights here than there is a willingness to add my drops of water — or tears — to the sea over time.

My body of work is the product of my ongoing navigation between the satisfactions of small, achievable, and intimate expressions and a drive to contribute to efforts larger than myself and to one day touch the hems of Shelley's "unacknowledged legislators of the world.” 

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.