MIRIAM CAHN: I AS HUMAN
EDITED BY MARTA DZIEWAŃSKA
MUSEUM OF MODERN ART IN WARSAW 2019
The museum under construction book series We are building a Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw We are writing a new history of art
4
TABLE OF CONTENTS
5
JOANNA MYTKOWSKA, MANUEL BORJA-VILLEL, BERNHARD SPIES
PATRICIA FALGUIÈRES, ÉLISABETH LEBOVICI
& NINA ZIMMER
& NATAŠA PETREŠIN-BACHELEZ
Preface
“In My Work, Each Day Is Important”: Conversation with Miriam Cahn
7
163
MARTA DZIEWAŃSKA
Introduction
I
11
SELECTED WORKS MIRIAM CAHN: I AS HUMAN
ANA ARA & FERNANDO LÓPEZ
In the Meantime: Thinking with Miriam Cahn for a Retrospective Exhibition PAUL B. PRECIADO
15
Transuranic Flesh Stone-Words, Stone-Images: Memoirs from a (Mad)House
KATHLEEN BÜHLER
Miriam Cahn: Declaring War
69
ADAM SZYMCZYK
Documents of a Journey
93
NATALIA SIELEWICZ
The “It” in the “I”: Miriam Cahn and the Confessions of an Impersonal Subject
109
RITA SEGATO
The Writing of Women’s Bodies
123
JAKUB MOMRO
Intensities
131
ÉRIC DE CHASSEY
Beautiful Documents of Helplessness
195
MARTA DZIEWAŃSKA
ESSAYS
II
179
149
III
201
MIRIAM CAHN MOUNTAINS, TOWNS, PLANTS, ANIMALS, DRAWING, PAINTING, PHOTOGRAPHY, I MYSELF 15–18.03.2000 215 List of Works and Photo Credits
235
7
M
JOANNA MYTKOWSKA MANUEL BORJA-VILLEL BERNHARD SPIES NINA ZIMMER
iriam Cahn’s diverse body of work and her longstanding and resolute, radical approach to art has cemented her position as one of the major artists of her generation. In 2017, a wide international audience was swept away by her “tangibly great” documenta 14 presentations in Athens and Kassel. In 2019, the Kunstmuseum Bern, the Haus der Kunst, Munich, and the Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw have come together to cooperate on a large retrospective exhibition titled MIRIAM CAHN: I AS HUMAN, while at the same time, the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía in Madrid is showcasing MIRIAM CAHN: everything is equally important. We have joined forces to make this edition of essays come to life; it is meant to expand the critical reading of Miriam Cahn’s oeuvre within a broad framework of theoretical perspectives. Since Miriam Cahn began working as an artist, reflection on her artistic expression, on the media she uses, and on their historical precursors runs parallel to her own critical reaction to political and social events in which existential questions become tangible. The 1980s brought the feminist, peace, and environmental movements to wider consciousness; in the 1990s Cahn reflected on the Gulf and Yugoslav Wars and how they were treated in the media, and, in recent years, on the reactions to the European refugee crisis and the #MeToo movement. In the late 1970s, Cahn underscored her claim to the public sphere with graphic interventions in public spaces, and appropriated new formats, surfaces, or supports, as well as publishing outlets. She did this through a “genre,” drawing, that previously had been condescendingly smiled upon and seen as subordinate to painting. She also made good the feminist motto that “the personal is political” and becomes a matter of public interest. Due to these activities, Cahn acquired artistic fame in Switzerland, and through Swiss art historian and curator Jean-Christophe Ammann was highlighted as an important protagonist among a generation of young artists in Basel. Cahn’s characteristic mode of representing the frontal gaze is emphasized by her use of radiant colors. As in her previous work, she gives form and shape to what is relevant to her.
8 JOANNA MYTKOWSKA, MANUEL BORJA-VILLEL, BERNHARD SPIES & NINA ZIMMER
Now, however, her works “stare” all the more intensely at the beholder. In this way, Cahn realizes an impossible stance in feminist theory: that of returning the female gaze, which cancels out art-historical power structures. Her oeuvre is marked by her untiring exploration of artistic possibilities. And even though she is primarily renowned for her drawings and paintings, she experiments to an equal degree with photography, imprints, overpainting, moving images, and sculpture. She practices interdisciplinarity, intermediality, and performativity in a unique and distinctive way. The manner in which she uses media, however, is always committed to her uncompromising attitude, which feeds on fundamental issues. They are: Who am I? What is art if my role models are male artists? Who am I as a female artist? What does it mean to be a woman? How can beauty and destruction or violence be reconciled in one and the same picture? What happens when the naked woman—the ultimate voyeuristic object—gazes back at the beholder? To what extent are painting and drawing suited for the representation of current political problems? Joanna Mytkowska, director, Museum of Modern Art in Warsaw Manuel Borja-Villel, director, Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofía, Madrid Bernhard Spies, commercial director, Haus der Kunst, Munich Nina Zimmer, director, Kunstmuseum Bern / Zentrum Paul Klee