File:Nancy Cohen Estuary 2007.JPG

Installation by Nancy Cohen, Estuary: Moods & Modes (detail of wall component, handmade paper, wire and salt, 376" x 132" x 96", 2007). The image illustrates a key mid-career body of work by Nancy Cohen: her large-scale, abstract installations inspired by New York and New Jersey water ecologies affected by human development. This image represents her most ambitious work to its date: an undulating installation of layered, handmade and hand-colored Abacá pulp—some stretched like parchment skins over wire armatures—that referenced a biotic ecosystem of the Mullica River that she had observed for months. Its translucent, swirling and trailing papers evoke the fragile balance and power of nature, flows, and shifting topography and weather. This installation was publicly exhibited in prominent venues and discussed in major art journals and daily press publications.

Artist Nancy Cohen. Copyright held by the artist.

Nancy Cohen

Installation view

Yes. The image will not affect the commercial value of the original work or limit the copyright holder's rights or ability to distribute the original due to its low resolution and the general workings of the art market, which values the actual work of art. Because of the low resolution, illegal copies could not be made.

The image has contextual significance serving an informational and educational purpose as the primary means of illustrating a major mid-career shift in Nancy Cohen's art career beginning in the latter 2000s, when she began producing large-scale installations, that functioned as abstracted interpretations of water ecologies affected by human development. This work balanced celebration and critique, finding beauty amid destruction as it conveyed the themes such as loss, survival, and the dissonance between the constancy of nature and a virulent built environment. These works, which emphasized transition and transformation, often defied categorization, functioning simultaneously as bas-relief, walk-around sculpture, installation and diagrammatic drawings in space, incorporating handmade paper and glass works and sculpted and found objects. Because the article is about an artist and her art, the omission of the image would significantly limit a reader's understanding and ability to understand this key body of work, which brought Cohen wider recognition through exhibitions in major venues, coverage by major critics and publications, and museum commissions. Cohen's work of this type and this series, as well as this specific work, are discussed in the article and by critics cited in the article.

There is no free equivalent of this or any other of this series by Nancy Cohen, so the image cannot be replaced by a free image.

The image use is minimal in that it conveys important information that a full artwork image at a limited fair-use size cannot due to the uniquely hyper-detailed nature of the work. By providing a close-up of the artist's style and imagery, it is significantly more informative for a viewer. It is also a further protection (along with the low resolution) against affecting commercial value.