In 1987, Aperture published Lynne Cohen’s first monograph, Occupied Territory, an exploration of domestic and institutional interior spaces—sometimes idealized, sometimes standardized, humorous, and disquieting. Now, Aperture is pleased to release a newly expanded and updated reissue of this classic monograph, making Cohen’s pioneering work available to a contemporary audience with a new essay situating her within the lineage of the New Documents and New Topographics photographic movements.

In the work in this book, all from 1971 to 1987, Cohen turns her view camera on classrooms, science laboratories, testing facilities, waiting rooms, and other interior spaces where function triumphs over aesthetics and aesthetics triumphs over function. Often, the decorations the inhabitants have added to make the spaces more inviting only serve to amplify their artifice and uniformity. In cool, functional offices, futuristic reception areas, lifeless party rooms, and escapist motel rooms, Cohen surveys a society of surface and contradiction. In her hands, clouds peel off walls and forest glades invade indoor tennis courts, and the awkward lives of furniture are revealed. Drawing on a background in sculpture, Cohen records what seem to be ready-made sculptural installations waiting to be photographed.

This edition of Occupied Territory includes unpublished images drawn from the book’s original time period, as well as the essay, by Britt Salvesen, placing Cohen’s work in the context of when it was made and of the world today.

Copublished with the Stephen Daiter Gallery

Lynne Cohen (born in Racine, Wisconsin, 1944) studied printmaking and sculpture before turning to photography. She has had many solo and group exhibitions, including retrospectives in Canada, France, and Switzerland. In addition to Occupied Territory, books of her photographs include, L’endroit du décor/Lost and Found (1992), No Man’s Land (2001), Camouflage (2005), Cover (2009), and Nothing Is Hidden (2012). In 2005, she received the Governor General’s Award in Visual and Media Arts (Canada) and in 2011 was the first winner of the Scotiabank Photography Award. She lives in Montreal.

David Byrne (preface) is a world-renowned artist and musician.

Britt Salvesen (essay) is department head and curator of the Wallis Annenberg Photography Department, and the department head and curator of prints and drawings, at the Los Angeles County Museum of Art.