This exhibition marks the first solo presentation of Miriam Cahn in London. It includes several new works and installations together with a selection of paintings, drawings and photographs — spanning her career from 1978 to 2011.
Miriam Cahn’s work emerged from the performative happenings of the 1970s and is heavily influenced by the feminist movement of the 1960s. First structured around performances, large black charcoal drawings and interventions in the street (for which she was arrested in Basel), her practice grew to include film, music, photography and the medium for which she is perhaps best known — painting. Cahn’s paintings are uncommon and immediately recognisable: an extraordinary colourist, she uses vivid pink, violet and blue to represent ghostly silhouettes, faces and animals. Cahn works in series, some of which are related to political issues, for instance, her series of works on Sarajevo.
The exhibition opens with the installation Schlafen (1997), comprising of thirteen paintings of lying figures of different sizes. The lying figure in Cahn’s imagery has often been associated with war and its disasters, although the reading of these paintings remains ambiguous.
