Miriam Cahn, Eugène Carrière - schreiender säugling

Oil on canvas dated 1903 by French painter Eugène Carrière depicting a child asleep on its mother — Eugène Carrière, *Enfant endormi sur sa mère*, c. 1903, oil on canvas, 40 x 32 cm

Oil on canvas dated 1904 by French painter Eugène Carrière depicting a child, Nelly Delvolvé, sucking his fist. — Eugène Carrière, *Portrait de Nelly Delvolvé*, c. 1904, oil on canvas, 41 x 33 cm

Excerpt from a 2014 digital slideshow by Swiss artist Miriam Cahn showing a pair of sculpted breasts — Miriam Cahn, *schreiender säugling* (excerpt), 2014, digital slideshow

Excerpt from a 2014 digital slideshow by Swiss artist Miriam Cahn showing a sculpted child's head — Miriam Cahn, *schreiender säugling* (excerpt), 2014, digital slideshow

Excerpt from a digital slideshow dated 2014 by Swiss artist Miriam Cahn showing a carved child's head and breast — Miriam Cahn, *schreiender säugling* (excerpt), 2014, digital slideshow

Eugène Carrière (1849 – 1906) was one of the most singular painters of the late 19th century. Unlike the artists and movements of his time, he explored a tight register, both in his means of expression and in his choice of subjects. Using a palette limited to shades of brown, he painted sketchy compositions in which the figures are only shaped by chiaroscuro. The forms emerge from a background devoid of scenery or detail, far from any description or narrative. He painted a few landscapes, still lifes, numerous portraits and, above his own family. A painter of intimacy, Carrière tirelessly captured his wife and children in genre scenes of which he gave multiple variations.

Alongside the paintings by Eugène Carrière, a digital slideshow by Miriam Cahn gives the exhibition its title: schreiender säugling [crying child]. Composed of images edited together to compose a film, the slideshow shows sculptures in various states. A child’s head, mouth gaping. Breasts. These two elements are brought together in a simulacrum of breast-feeding. The sculptures still bear the traces of the hands that shaped them. The artist’s hands appear in some of the photographs, sometimes modelling the forms, sometimes crushing them with the fist. A gesture that, in the ambivalent encounter between the real body and the sculpted body, creates an equivocation that goes well beyond the apparent theme of a child suckling at the breast.