Solitude : Miriam Cahn
Past exhibition
Overview
Opening April 5, 2024 | 6 - 8 pm
Bernheim is delighted to announce “Solitude”, a historic exhibition of works by Miriam Cahn at our London Gallery. Comprising a body of work rooted in feminist thinking and activism, we are thrilled to present works that will captivate the audience through a powerful succession of images.
Emerging from the simple observation that one of the most important contemporary artists had been crucially missing from the British landscape, not having had a show in London in decades - and nothing of this wingspan - the works of Miriam Cahn are fathomless and yet they instil in the viewer a strong reaction, repulsion and attraction, anger and awe, all sharing the same pictorial plane. Most importantly, it seemed that nothing was more relevant and urgent than her vibrant depictions of women being punched in the face, of migrants drowning, of war, of figures of undefined sex, images that the artist started to create in the 1980s, outside of the media and the arenas of contentions. They act as premonitions, but their interest lies not in wanting to tell us what to think, what to do, they are apolitical and yet they make us stand in a landmine of our owns faults, but also in the midst of the beauty we can escape to in nature. Cahn’s works are not didactic, they are sincere and generous and it felt necessary to attempt to display the full range of motions of her oeuvre, an oeuvre that sees no hierarchy between the mediums or the images, all of them are life as we know it, but also as we often refuse to see it. The mundane is mitigated by flashes of news, of unbearable other life stories we are quick to dismiss to survive our own.
We are all angry, revolted, and also more alone and isolated than ever: no one can depict these feelings better than Miriam Cahn.
Bernheim is delighted to announce “Solitude”, a historic exhibition of works by Miriam Cahn at our London Gallery. Comprising a body of work rooted in feminist thinking and activism, we are thrilled to present works that will captivate the audience through a powerful succession of images.
Emerging from the simple observation that one of the most important contemporary artists had been crucially missing from the British landscape, not having had a show in London in decades - and nothing of this wingspan - the works of Miriam Cahn are fathomless and yet they instil in the viewer a strong reaction, repulsion and attraction, anger and awe, all sharing the same pictorial plane. Most importantly, it seemed that nothing was more relevant and urgent than her vibrant depictions of women being punched in the face, of migrants drowning, of war, of figures of undefined sex, images that the artist started to create in the 1980s, outside of the media and the arenas of contentions. They act as premonitions, but their interest lies not in wanting to tell us what to think, what to do, they are apolitical and yet they make us stand in a landmine of our owns faults, but also in the midst of the beauty we can escape to in nature. Cahn’s works are not didactic, they are sincere and generous and it felt necessary to attempt to display the full range of motions of her oeuvre, an oeuvre that sees no hierarchy between the mediums or the images, all of them are life as we know it, but also as we often refuse to see it. The mundane is mitigated by flashes of news, of unbearable other life stories we are quick to dismiss to survive our own.
We are all angry, revolted, and also more alone and isolated than ever: no one can depict these feelings better than Miriam Cahn.
Miriam Cahn (born in Basel, 1949) lives and works in Stampa, Switzerland. Selected significant solo exhibitions include “Ma Pensée Sérielle”, Palais de Tokyo, Paris, France (2023); “GEZEICHNET”, Fondazione ICA, Milan, Italy (2022); “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 (China, 2020), among others. In 2022 she participated in the 59th Biennale d'Arte di Venezia and received the Ruben prize of the city of Siegen, Germany (2022). Upcoming exhibitions include her restropective “READING DUST”, Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam, Netherlands (2024). 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 (Japan).
Please note this exhibition was not conceived in collaboration with the artist. The artist is represented by Galerie Jocelyn Wolff, Paris, and Meyer Riegger, Berlin / Karlsruhe / Basel.
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Works
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Miriam Cahnjunge weltäffin, 1998oil on canvas52 x 84 cm
20 1/2 x 33 1/8 in -
Miriam Cahn"atombombe", 1987pastel on paper150 x 140 cm
59 x 55 1/8 in -
Miriam Cahnäffchenzorn, 3.12.21, 2021pastel on paper40 x 25 cm
15 3/4 x 9 7/8 in -
Miriam Cahnfleischtal (das ist meine haut), 2015oil on canvas212.5 x 325 cm
83 5/8 x 128 in -
Miriam Cahnfremd / schön, 2002oil on canvas95 x 100 cm
37 3/8 x 39 3/8 in -
Miriam Cahno.t., 2017oil on canvas194.8 x 180 cm
76 3/4 x 70 7/8 in -
Miriam Cahno.t., 2.+5.11.20 , 2020oil on canvas29 x 21 cm
11 3/8 x 8 1/4 in -
Miriam Cahno.t.09.03.2010, 2010oil on canvas180 x 105 cm
70 7/8 x 41 3/8 in -
Miriam Cahnrealismus, 08.05. + 04.12.17 , 2017pastel on paper47 x 77 cm
18 1/2 x 30 1/4 in -
Miriam Cahntapirschreiten/gezeichnet, 2012-2015oil on canvas250 x 350 cm
98 3/8 x 137 3/4 in -
Miriam Cahnversehrt, 1998oil on canvas65 x 50 cm
25 5/8 x 19 3/4 in -
Miriam Cahnversinken, 1975/2004 + 09.07. 2017oil on canvas72 x 59 cm
28 3/8 x 23 1/4 in -
Miriam Cahnweisse, 2018oil on canvas145 x 90 cm
57 1/8 x 35 3/8 in -
Miriam Cahnzurückschauen, 2014oil on canvas240 x 180 cm
94 1/2 x 70 7/8 in
Installation Views
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