Born in Zurich in 1970, Cyril Kuhn studied law, worked as a bouncer, roofer and servant. He received a MFA in Film and Video from CalArts in 2001. 2021 Cyril was a member of the LA County DHS covid response team , helping to vaccinate homeless people in LA county and subsequently founded RAF (https://rovingartfoundation.squarespace.com/) supporting homeless artists.
Selected shows:
Black Dragon Society, Los Angeles
c-level. Los Angeles (http://c-level.org/history.html)
Message Salon, Zurich (http://old.likeyou.com/messagesalon_bottkuhn/)
The Laguna Art museum
Jancar Gallery, Los Angeles (http://www.jancargallery.com/)
LA Arthouse, Los Angeles
Reviews:
Men and Interiors. Older men whose faces we see in the news but which we rarely actually look at. Cyril Kuhn treats their image with painterly tenderness that feels inappropriate, given who and what they are (utterly unattractive in form and ideology). His brush teases out the seductions of patriarchy, while maintaining a careful distance. Small portraits are displayed as if they were family photos, as if world leaders and oligarchs were your uncles and grandfathers. A female face finds herself in there; a Queen, a First Lady, an anomaly. Look closer: mixed up in the collective portrait are boxers more men: men from the other end of the social spectrum, whose rise to prominence is not won in elite academies and exclusive boardrooms. Some portraits show them caught in a throw of a punch, others quietly trace a facial history of broken bone. Large canvases image them displaced into delicious interiors, as if Klitschko fought his matches in the rooms of Versailles.
Jennifer Doyle
As a member of the artist-run cooperative c-level from 2001-2004, Kuhn organized events and produced several video shorts. In 2004, his collaborative video installation JOYCE with Ron Athey was realized at Kampnagel theatre, Hamburg and toured throughout England and Scotland .
Since 2005 Kuhn turned to painting like his mother Rosina Kuhn and his grandfather Adolf Funk. His grandmother is the textile artist Lissy Funk.
My images are inhabited by figures and themes I’ve been obsessing over since childhood. Some of them have been woven back into my live, my goal is to reflect the experience of this mysteriously interconnected weave.
My favorite threads are: Boxing, victorian interiors, politicians and judges, cats and cows, William Morris wall paper. busts of roman emperors, sail and war ships, Swiss, Japanese and African masks.
Cyril Kuhn
