Kunsthaus Bregenz

MIRIAM CAHN
Das Genaue Hinschauen
13 April — 30 June 2019

To coincide with her seventieth birthday in the summer of 2019, Miriam Cahn is presenting her first major institutional solo exhibition in Austria at Kunsthaus Bregenz.

Her paintings are as oppressive as they are engaging. In pastels or charcoal, Cahn frequently depicts figures that fill the frame within empty, barely defined surroundings. The faces are shadowy reduced, eyes and mouths merely schematic. The bodies, mostly naked, appear lost and ghostlike, as if illuminated by fluorescent light. They are rarely active and when they are, it involves disturbingly simplified, sometimes violent gestures. Loneliness, sexuality, love, violence, and destruction are her subject matter. Cahn is influenced by the performance art of the 1970s, feminist art, and the peace movement. Her figures call for mute identification, sympathy, and a heightened awareness. Sometimes the mountainous landscape of the Upper Engadine is depicted by rugged horizons, overpowering and sublime, and yet, their lines still seem to allude to the human.

Miriam Cahn is not shy of the subject of sexuality. She bases her art on the profane, entering into a dialogue of opposing equivalents with the seemingly sacral architecture of Kunsthaus Bregenz. Although both architect Peter Zumthor and the artist were born near Basel, they have never met in person – to accompany the Bregenz exhibition, a public conversation will be taking place between them for the first time.

Biography

Miriam Cahn, born in 1949 in Basel, Switzerland, was as early as 1982 to participate in documenta 7, Kassel. Her work has been presented internationally in numerous solo and group exhibitions, including Kunsthalle Basel (1983), Museum of Modern Art, New York (1984), Kunsthaus Zürich (1993), Fundación La Caixa, Madrid (2003), Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin (2004), Le Plateau, Paris (2012), Museum Tinguely, Basel (2017). She was represented at documenta 14, Kassel (2017), and the 21st Biennale of Sydney (2018). To coincide with her seventieth birthday in the summer of 2019, Miriam Cahn is presenting several exhibitions including Kunstmuseum Bern, Reina Sofía, Madrid, Haus der Kunst, Munich and Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw. Her exhibition at Kunsthaus Bregenz is her first major institutional solo exhibition in Austria.

She lives and works in Stampa in the canton of Graubünden, Switzerland.