Pop/off/art Gallery presents the first exhibition project of George Cohen, whose name opens a new chapter in the career of the artist, known for more than three decades as Georgy Puzenkov, a participant in numerous museum exhibitions and biennales, one of the first artists to work with digital image structure, the author of the large-scale project Mona Lisa Travels. The transition to the name Cohen is not related to a biographical gesture, but to an internal change in the artistic method. It means a change of artistic foundation — a transition to a new philosophy and a new way of creating an image. This is Cohen's first solo exhibition not only in Russia, but also in the world, announcing the emergence of a new author, his new phenomenon in Russia, where at one time, back in the 1970s and 80s, the artistic language of Georgy Puzenkov took place. 

The exhibition will feature about 20 large-format paintings fr om 2019-2024 that have not been previously exhibited. Cohen's works, executed in a special author's method, balance on the edge of figurative and non-objective imagery, with the integration of text into some works. In the Shadow Theory project, conceived by the artist more than ten years ago, painting is seen as the process of turning the diffused light of thought into a material form. Shadow is understood not as the absence of light, but as a sign of its embodiment: a space wh ere an idea acquires density, weight and direction. At the center of the theory is the act of collapse: the moment when a multitude of possible images existing in a state of imaginary superposition are compressed into a single gesture of the hand.

The exhibition reveals the shadow as a structural principle, not a metaphor. In the works of the series, shadow is the presence, contour and visible architecture of the soul's movement towards embodiment. It is here, in the tension between light and form, that George Cohen forms his artistic identity.: 

"People usually perceive a shadow as something external, as if a shadow is a dark skin surface or some kind of airy tongue that is cast by a tree, a pole, a person, a house or a moving car. This is the most common misconception: shadow is considered a property of light, a shade of illumination, and secondary matter. But shadow is as immaterial as light, and at the same time belongs even more to matter than light itself, because shadow is matter itself. In our visible world, matter is almost always illuminated by direct or reflected light: it is only because of this that we generally distinguish between shape, surface, and contour. The shadow is minus the light. But it is precisely this emptiness that is the evidence of the object itself."

Georgy Puzenkov was born in 1953 in Krasnopol (Belarus) into a family of doctors. He received his first drawing lessons fr om his grandfather, an artist from Vitebsk who studied with Marc Chagall. In 1967 he graduated from the Art College. Feshina in Kazan. In 1968, the family moved to Moscow, and in 1971 he entered the Moscow University of Electronic Engineering at the Faculty of Computer Technology, continuing to pursue art. After graduating from the University with honors, Puzenkov entered the Moscow Polygraphic Academy at the Faculty of Graphics and graduated in 1983, his professors were D. D. Zhilinsky and P. G. Zakharov. From 1983 to 1987, he worked with publishing houses and participated in exhibitions of perestroika: 17th and 18th Youth, Rock Art Parade "ASSA", "Hermitage", "Labyrinth" and others. Georgy Puzenkov is a participant in a number of large-scale foreign and Russian projects: "AfteRReality" at the Ludwig Museum in Germany and MMSI in Moscow (2013), "Mona Lisa and the Black The Square" at the Ritter Museum in Germany (2007), the "Mona Lisa 500" project at the State Tretyakov Gallery (2004) and "Mona Lisa Goes Space" as part of the 51st Venice Biennale (2005), etc. Since 1987, he began to exhibit abroad, and since 1990, at the invitation of the Hans Mayer Gallery, he began working in Cologne, continuing his active creative and exhibition activities in Moscow. 

In 2011, Puzenkov began to study the separation of color and tone and began to form a "semiotic theory of shadow." It is she who becomes the key moment in the transition to a new artistic phase of his work – the name change from Georgy Puzenkov to George Cohen, wh ere the new period does not cancel out the previous one, but forms its perspective. The author's identities are autonomous from each other: the former manifestation as Georgy Puzenkov becomes an archive of artistic experience, while George Cohen presents his debut exhibition project, formed around many years of research practice. 

The pop/off/art Gallery was founded in 2004 in Moscow by art critic Sergey Popov. Olga Popova has been a partner of the gallery since 2011. The gallery represents Russian and European artists. Participates in the largest contemporary art fairs in Russia and Europe. The gallery has organized several dozen museum projects in Russia. Since 2011, the gallery has been located on the territory of the Central Exhibition Center "Vinzavod". In 2012-2014, the pop/off/art branch was located in Berlin.  In 2023, the gallery's second exhibition space in Moscow, pop/off/art 2.0, opened at 9 Bolshoy Palashevsky Lane.