Miriam Cahn
corporel / körperlich
12 September–14 December 2014
Opening: Friday 12 September, 6–9pm
Centre Culturel Suisse, Paris
38 rue des Francs-Bourgeois
75003 Paris
France
Hours: Tuesday–Sunday 1–7pm
T + 33 1 42 71 44 50
ccs [at] ccsparis.com
The current Miriam Cahn show at the CCS is the most comprehensive one devoted to the artist ever mounted in France, and includes works done over a period of 25 years, from 1979 to 2014. It is articulated around five distinct spaces and features different series of pieces (drawings, paintings, sketchbooks, photographs of street drawings), while also devoting a large section to new paintings.
In the 1970s, Cahn began drawing directly on the floor, using black chalk especially, as well as on large-format sheets of paper and even in public space. With her lively style, she creates striking human figures that are infused with a troubling intensity in which woman exhibits her body in all its expressiveness. Cahn also draws menacing architectures along with warships, which echo man’s constructive and destructive follies. A rebel and activist, Cahn defends a form of feminism in her art practice. Later on in her career, she experimented with oil painting and bright colors, notably in her series of nuclear mushroom clouds. A significant part of her output has always comprised “portraits” of humans, animals or plants, often depicted facing the viewer and throbbing with an enigmatic presence. In the 1990s, her work started to allude at times to political subjects like the conflicts in the former Yugoslavia and the Middle East, or the 9-11 terrorist attacks. She is currently evoking the situation in Syria while continuing her sensitive and expressive exploration of the body and nature.
Miriam Cahn was born in 1949 in Basel. She lives and works in Val Bregaglia (Graubünden). In 1983, Jean-Christophe Ammann exhibited her work at the Basel Kunsthalle, and in 1984 she represented Switzerland at the Venice Biennial. Her solo shows notably include the DAAD Gallery in Berlin (1986), the Cornerhouse in Manchester (1990), the Kunsthaus of Zurich (1993), Berlin’s Akademie der bildenden Künste as the winner of the Käthe Kollwitz Preis (1998), Castello di Rivara (1999), Bienne’s Centre PasquArt (2002), and the La Caixa Foundation in Madrid (2003). More recently she has shown at the David Roberts Art Foundation in London (2011) and the Eli and Edythe Broad Art Museum at Michigan State University (2013). She is currently represented by the Jocelyn Wolff Gallery in Paris, the Meyer Riegger Gallery in Karlsruhe and Berlin, and the Elizabeth Dee Gallery in New York.
There is an artist’s book accompanying the show, a facsimile of a sketchbook that Cahn filled between 1979 and 2010.
In partnership with Aargauer Kunsthaus Aarau, which will be hosting the show from 23 January to 19 April 2015. With the support of Swisslos, Kulturförderung Kanton Graubünden, Office de la culture Bâle-Ville, Canton Bâle-Campagne and Ernst Göhner Foundation.
Also on display in the courtyard gallery:
collectif_fact, Le bénéfice du doute
12 September–26 October 2014
Opening: Friday, 12 September, 6–9pm
Active since early 2000, collectif_fact is currently made up of Annelore Schneider (born in 1979; currently based in London) and Claude Piguet (born in 1977; currently based in Geneva). The two artists produce videos inspired by the codes and vocabulary of cinema, working from images they often film in public places. With a sharp sense of editing and juxtaposing images and sound, they create surprising fictions from apparently banal situations. At CCS the duo is presenting two videos that are filled with suspense, Hitchcock Presents (2010) and The Fixer (2013). These two works bring into play film locations, respectively Le Corbusier’s White House in La Chaux-de-Fonds and the Barbican of Chamberlin, Powell & Bon in London.
The artists’ collective collectif_fact has had solo shows at the Ferme Asile in Sion (2014), at Neuchâtel’s CAN (2013), at Geneva’s Centre d’art contemporain (2011), and the Glassbox in Paris (2008). The collective has also participated in group projects at Winterthur’s Fotomuseum, Montreal’s International Festival of Films on Art (2014), the Mois de la Photographie in Luxembourg, the Centro Palacio de Cibeles in Madrid, and the Moca in Hiroshima (2013).
Both exhibitions have been curated by Jean-Paul Felley & Olivier Kaeser, the codirectors of CCS.
Free admission.
