Miriam Cahn: devoir-pleurer

Galerie Jocelyn Wolff is pleased to announce Miriam Cahn’s fifth solo exhibition with the gallery, devoir-pleurer. The public opening will take place on Sunday, September 8, from 3–7pm. 

Spanning more than four decades, Miriam Cahn’s diverse practice encompasses paintings, works on paper, slideshows, photography, and notebooks. Shaped by her serial thinking and reflecting her humanist perspective on the world, her work explores themes ranging from war, its injustice and violence, to individual and intimate experiences of identity and sexuality, such as being a woman or a Jew. 

This year, she was honored with two of the most prestigious European art prizes: the Oskar Kokoschka Prize from the Austrian Federal Government and the Goslar Kaiserring from the city of Goslar. In October 2024, her solo exhibition READING DUST opens at Stedelijk Museum Amsterdam. 

MY RHYTHMIC WRITING
“cahn a jewish surname
my father german Jew
me raised in Switzerland without religion
child—I didn’t know what Jew meant
my father’s school friends were spread all over the world
when they would come to visit us I especially liked their german with american accents and their history/stories
the uncle from Berlin the aunt from Karlsruhe both left-wing zionist kibbutzniks
I only began to understand during puberty
began to see the difference between me and my swiss girlfriends
began to understand why my father learnt Basel german during the war
(…)”
Excerpt from the exhibition text: MY RHYTHMIC WRITING, written by Miriam Cahn, 2024

Miriam Cahn (born in Basel, 1949) lives and works in Stampa, Switzerland. Significant solo exhibitions include Ma pensée sérielle, Palais de Tokyo (Paris, 2023); GEZEICHNET, ICA Milan (2022); MEINEJUDEN, Museum für Gegenwartskunst Siegen (2022), ME AS HAPPENING, the Kunsthal Charlottenborg (2020) & The Power Plant, Toronto (2021); Fremd das fremde, Palazzo Castelmur (Stampa, 2021); Sifang Art Museum, Nanjing (2020); I AS HUMAN, Kunstmuseum Bern (2019), Haus der Kunst, Munich (2019) & Museum of Modern Art, Warsaw (2019); Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid (2019); Kunsthaus Bregenz (2019), among others. The artist has participated in the 59th Venice Biennale (2022); the Baltic Triennale in Vilnius and Riga (2018); the 21st Biennale of Sydney (2018) and documenta 14 in both Kassel and Athens (2017). She has been the recipient of prestigious awards including the 14th Rubens Prize from the city of Siegen (2022), Oberrheinischer Kunstpreis Offenburg, Basler Kunstpreis, Käthe-Kollwitz-Preis Berlin, Ströher Preis Frankfurt/Main and the DAAD grant in 1985.