Miriam Cahn
15 Jan - 07 Mar 2009
MIRIAM CAHN
For her first solo show at Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Miriam Cahn worked in a unchronologicalmanner, bringing together older works (blind, von vorne, vom frausein, 1979, notebookcompleted with eyes closed; o.t, 1980 etc.) and recent works created in Paris for theexhibition (ensemble of paper works in the small room), asserting a kind of temporal unity ofthe work and its heterogeneousness where oil paintings, photographs, charcoal drawings andother techniques on paper are shown without hierarchy, side by side. The ensemble of workswas composed in relationship to das hirn meiner mutter (the mind of my mother). This pieceoccupies a central and frontal position in the exhibition, the starting point for a dense andcomplex hanging, for which the exhibition space was divided into two independent rooms.
Regardless of format or technique, each work’s completion was allotted approximately thesame amount of time. More than its formal dimension which is treated in a heterogeneousfashion, the process is at the heart of the work, confirmed through the strength of the hangingwhen works are placed in opposition and its “curatorial incorrectness”, as with schönheitplaced next to o.t 28.02.95 (a small finger painting on the wall to the right when entering thelarge room), and also with ereignis 7.02.07, where sketches of perspectives appear inconfrontation with o.t 16.10.04 with its flat, solid patches of color (back wall in the smallroom).
The ensemble of works presented at the gallery also witnesses the emergence of thematicaspects of the work. Some examples include the recurrence of small characters that could beinterpreted as victims and/or children, as well as the two ensembles of drawings entitledsarajevo, completed during the conflict and the “ethnic purification” in the Balkans in 1992,and also the feminist discourse (in blind, von vorne, vom frausein, and in the recurring motifof the house).
For her first solo show at Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Miriam Cahn worked in a unchronologicalmanner, bringing together older works (blind, von vorne, vom frausein, 1979, notebookcompleted with eyes closed; o.t, 1980 etc.) and recent works created in Paris for theexhibition (ensemble of paper works in the small room), asserting a kind of temporal unity ofthe work and its heterogeneousness where oil paintings, photographs, charcoal drawings andother techniques on paper are shown without hierarchy, side by side. The ensemble of workswas composed in relationship to das hirn meiner mutter (the mind of my mother). This pieceoccupies a central and frontal position in the exhibition, the starting point for a dense andcomplex hanging, for which the exhibition space was divided into two independent rooms.
Regardless of format or technique, each work’s completion was allotted approximately thesame amount of time. More than its formal dimension which is treated in a heterogeneousfashion, the process is at the heart of the work, confirmed through the strength of the hangingwhen works are placed in opposition and its “curatorial incorrectness”, as with schönheitplaced next to o.t 28.02.95 (a small finger painting on the wall to the right when entering thelarge room), and also with ereignis 7.02.07, where sketches of perspectives appear inconfrontation with o.t 16.10.04 with its flat, solid patches of color (back wall in the smallroom).
The ensemble of works presented at the gallery also witnesses the emergence of thematicaspects of the work. Some examples include the recurrence of small characters that could beinterpreted as victims and/or children, as well as the two ensembles of drawings entitledsarajevo, completed during the conflict and the “ethnic purification” in the Balkans in 1992,and also the feminist discourse (in blind, von vorne, vom frausein, and in the recurring motifof the house).