MIRIAM CAHN. GEZEICHNET
Curated by Alberto Salvadori and Luigi Fassi

From Friday, March 18th until Saturday, May 28th, 2022 Fondazione ICA Milano presents Gezeichnet, Italian solo show by Miriam Cahn (Basilea, 1949) curated by Alberto Salvadori and Luigi Fassi.

Miriam Cahn’s work finds its core in life, made manifest through the representation of the body. The main characters of her works, which at a first glance elude the distinction between human and non-human, recall, through the evocative force of lines and colours, crucial themes of the present time such as impotence in face of traumas and violence suffered, the origin of a new life and the search for a coexistence between human beings, animals and nature.
With her works, Cahn activates an overturning of the medium of painting, that from a traditional genre becomes an instrument of reflection used to thoroughly investigate European and global history.

Drawing inspiration from performance art and the feminist movements of the 60s and 70s, Miriam Cahn’s work often placed the body at the center of the creative process. Since the early 1980s her works have revealed a strong performative value, where the artist’s body often turned into a real artistic medium. It was during this period that Cahn established herself on the international scene. In 1982 she participated in Documenta 7, however choosing to remove her works from the prestigious event as a sign of protest. In 1983 her works were presented at the Kunsthalle in Basel, on the occasion of a solo exhibition curated by Jean-Christophe Ammann. In 1984 she was selected for the 41st edition of the Venice Biennale to represent her country, Switzerland. During the 90s the artist experienced a radical transformation of her practice, abandoning the monumental drawings that made her internationally known and giving a greater attention to the pictorial medium.

Over the last twenty years Miriam Cahn has developed her own iconography, which exploits the evocative potential of colour to convey strong themes such as human conflict, war, real scenarios and inner worlds.
The works presented in Gezeichnet are the result of an artist’s research who makes painting a real tool of thought. The figures that emerge from Miriam Cahn’s canvases and drawings tell their stories through the incredible vulnerability of their bodies. From the violence of historical events to sudden passions, from the loss of social ties to the unpredictability of birth and death, Miriam Cahn’s images identify exposure to vulnerability as one of the fundamental existential conditions of our human being.

On this occasion, a catalogue in English, edited by Fondazione ICA Milano and Mousse, will be published at the same time with the opening of the show at Fondazione ICA Milano. The publication gathers together a selection of works by Cahn and the texts of the authors such as Alberto Salvadori, Luigi Fassi, Carolin Emcke, Dieter Roelstraete, Estelle Hoy and Francesca Recchia.

 

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Miriam Cahn (born in Basel, 1949) lives and works in Stampa, Switzerland. Significant solo exhibitions include “ME AS HAPPENING” shown at the Kunsthal Charlottenborg and in a new iteration at The Power Plant in Toronto (2021); “Fremd das fremde” at Palazzo Castelmur (Stampa, 2021); Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing (2020); the exhibition I AS HUMAN at Kunstmuseum Bern (2019) which travelled to Haus der Kunst, Munich (2019) and Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw (2019); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2019); Kunsthaus Bregenz (2019), among others. Miriam Cahn has participated in group exhibitions including Mori Art Museum, Tokyo (2021); kunstmuseum Lausanne (2021); The Warehouse Dallas (2020); Pori Art Museum (Finland, 2020), Kunstmuseum Bonn (2019), Museum Tinguely (Basel, 2017), National Museum of Women in the Arts (Washington D.C., 2016), Irish Museum of Modern Art (Dublin, 2015), Dvir Gallery (Tel Aviv, 2014), Kunstmuseum Liechtenstein (2011), Neue Nationalgalerie (Berlin, 2004), Hong Kong Museum of Art (1995), Winnipeg Gallery + Vancouver Art Gallery (1988) and at the reopening of the Museum of Modern Art (New York, 1984). Furthermore, the artist has participated in the Baltic Triennale in Vilnius and Riga, the 21st Biennale of Sydney (2022), in the 14th edition of Documenta (both in Kassel and Athens). In 2022 she will participate in the 59th Biennale d'Arte di Venezia. She has received the Ruben prize of the city of Siegen, Germany (2022), the Oberrheinischer Kunstpreis Offenburg, in the Basler Kunstpreis, Käthe-KollwitzPreis Berlin, in Ströher Preis Frankfurt/Main and of the DAAD grant in 1985.
Her works are included in renowned collections such as Pinault Collection (Paris), Kunstmuseum Basel, Tate Modern (London), Museo Reina Sofia (Madrid), Museum for Modern Art (Warsaw), the Museum of Modern Art (New York), Rubell Collection (Miami), Long Museum (Shanghai) and Osaka Museum.