Miriam Cahn

This publication on Swiss feminist artist Miriam Cahn (born 1949) presents Fremd, a multilayered performance that explores the condition of foreignness. Works are documented by acclaimed Swiss photographer Lukas Wassmann.

Swiss painter Miriam Cahn (born 1949) reflects the vulnerability of human existence through her figurative paintings rendered in oil pastels and charcoals. Published to accompany the artist’s solo exhibition at ICA Milan, this catalog includes recent works alongside commissioned essays exploring the main themes of Cahn’s practice.

Released to accompany her first major solo exhibition in North America and Denmark, this publication comprises 25 years of output from the uncompromising Swiss artist Miriam Cahn (born 1949). Throughout her long career, Cahn has applied a feminist perspective to her work, critically engaging with themes such as women’s rights, identity, sexuality and war, and drawing on past and present experiences to challenge gender roles and heteronormative bias. Working across mediums from oil and watercolor painting to charcoal, chalk and pencil drawing to photography, film, text and installation, Cahn uses her own body as well as references to the performance art of the 1960s and ’70s as a vessel for exploring the dynamics of intimacy. With texts from Aruna D’Souza, Roxane Gay and John Yau, Me as Happening gathers diverse works from Cahn’s vast oeuvre to interrogate the relationship between sex, violence and power.