Opening of the exhibition
“MIRIAM CAHN: I AS HUMAN”
Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw invites you to the opening of the “MIRIAM CAHN: I AS HUMAN” exhibition.
It will be the first Polish retrospective of the Swiss artist Miriam Cahn, one of the most important and acknowledged painters of the second half of the 20th and the beginning of the 21st century.
Cahn’s works on canvas are above all an attempt to translate emotions into the language of painting: emotions that cannot be conveyed in verbal language in the face of trauma, acts of violence, armed conflicts, racism, and toxic human relationships. Figures in her paintings are often represented without facial features and clothing, as if the artist wanted to lend them the most universal, primal significance, reducing the body to vulnerable bare life. She is also testing the possibilities of representation in painting and striving to face the key questions related to the agency and ethics of art. How does one represent suffering and injustice without telling a moralizing tale? How does one avoid the trap of pathos and sensationalist spectacle? How does one assume the right to speak in the name of those who were deprived of a voice? And finally, how does one represent relationships that extend beyond the human, to the world of nature and non-human species?
“MIRIAM CAHN: I AS HUMAN” is a show arranged by the artist specifically for the Museum on the Vistula. It is the effect of cooperation between the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw, the Kunstmuseum in Berlin, and Haus der Kunst in Munich. The project was financed with the support of funding from Pro Helvetia.