Miriam Cahn works across painting, drawing, performance, film, photography and sculpture. Her visual practices are largely rooted in contemporary political crises and social issues such as those of wars, violence, brutality, sexism or racism. From a Jewish family who fled Nazi Germany to settle in Switzerland, the artist is vividly engaged against all sorts of abuses of power, domination, injustice and persecutions. Her work deploys a deep meditation on the human condition at large, exploring interpersonal dynamics, emotions and miseries ranging from contempt, vulnerability, fear, trauma and existential despair to sexual desires and exploitation, suffering, agony or death.

The core theme pervading her whole oeuvre is that of the human figure, its presence, its properties and visual manifestations. Thus «Miriam Cahn» represents the body in all its many forms and postures with indistinct facial features and magnified genitals on abstract, flat and diaphanous backgrounds. In- händehoch/entblösst,
a piece from - Hands up
, an ongoing series started around 2010, Cahn brings forth the question of sexual abuse and gender-based violence. Standing in an inhospitable and desolate outdoor setting, three frontal, naked and defenceless female bodies of different ages are cruelly exposed with their arms up and clothes down their knees. Even though the scene suggests that the women are being forced to hold this position, thus evoking the presence of a threat - ironically located where the viewer stands -, a certain confusion arises. The younger figure on the right side with the ball-like shape in her hands and the sketching of a laugh on her face shows the visual ambiguity between the gesture of a child's play and that of a possible humiliation and rape.