Cathy Josefowitz

The Thinking Body, the largest retrospective to date of the work of Cathy Josefowitz (1956–2014), showcases the entire range of her artistic output, in which paintings and drawings enter into a dialogue with choreography. Her whole life long, she never ceased to deconstruct the hierarchy between the dramatic and the visual arts and, thanks to works whose dimensions and expression reflect the range and the impact of her own body, her oeuvre personifies a reconciliation of two media often treated as disparate in art history. The body — in motion and in relation to other bodies — constitutes the core of her work.

Having departed this life in Geneva, in 2014, Cathy Josefowitz leaves a legacy comprising more than 3‘000 works of art spanning a period of over forty years. While Josefowitz’s work was rarely exhibited during her lifetime, the cosmopolitan Swiss artist’s extensive oeuvre now can be rethought in the context of current discourses: it resonates strangely in light of the present resurgence in Europe and the rest of the western world of questions of identity pertaining to the body, its self-expression, and its representation by others, as well as to the rise of a new syntax of feminist militancy.

This retrospective highlights Cathy Josefowitz’s contribution to art history and contemporary dance and is an opportunity to discover an artist whose work remains still largely unknown.

The exhibition at the Centre culturel suisse is conceived by the curators Claire Hoffmann and Elise Lammer, as part of a project initiated by Elise Lammer and jointly realized and shown by the Kunsthaus Langenthal (cur. Raffael Dörig), the Centre culturel suisse and the MACRO Roma (cur. Luca Lo Pinto), between 2021 and 2022. With the support of the association Les Amis de Cathy Josefowitz (Geneva), the Arsenic - Centre d’art scénique contemporain (Lausanne) and La Becque | Résidence d’artistes (La Tour-de-Peilz).

The exhibition also occasions a new performative work by the Swiss-American artist Garrett Nelson (*1982). In their research into Josefowitz’s work as a dancer and painter, Nelson explores the experimental dance context as well as a form of painting that “is embodied.” Their performance will be presented at Kunsthaus Langenthal, at Centre culturel suisse. Paris, and at Arsenic, centre d’art scénique contemporain, in Lausanne, in collaboration with La Becque | Artist Residency in La Tour-de-Peilz.

L’exposition donne aussi lieu à une nouvelle œuvre performative de l’artiste Suisse-Américan Garrett Nelson (*1982). Dans sa recherche sur l’artiste danseuse-peintre, Nelson explore le contexte de la danse expérimentale ainsi qu’une forme de peinture qui « prend corps ». La performance sera présentée au Kunsthaus Langenthal, au Centre culturel suisse ainsi qu’à Arsenic, centre d’art scénique contemporain, à Lausanne, en collaboration avec La Becque | Résidence d’artistes, La Tour-de-Peilz.