The CAB is pleased to collaborate with the National Gallery on Cyclops and Other Tales, a retrospective of works by Marion Wagschal. This exhibition represents the CAB’s first partnership with a major institution, while allowing us to activate our programming and support artists before we open our doors.
Both intimate and universal, Marion Wagschal’s paintings are visual autobiographies, exploring themes of memory, generational trauma, the body, and the passage of time with exceptional sensitivity. She often depicts subjects that are otherwise considered unworthy of study, chief among them aging female bodies marked by life. By doing so, she grants them an agency that is at once affronting and beautiful. Marion’s work is deeply feminist, belonging to a movement of resistance and compassion that foregrounds female experience while asserting the narrative power of the flesh and body.
Her work has profoundly shaped generations of artists through its singularity, its coherence, and its commitment to vulnerability. Still, Marion’s work long remained outside the dominant trends of the art world. Our relationship with her, which developed over years of support by our Founder, Joe Battat, allowed us to identify meaningful ways of supporting her. By collaborating with the National Gallery, we are able to create well-deserved opportunities for her on a national scale.
Collaboration is one of the CAB’s defining values. Anaïs Castro, the Assistant Curator at the National Gallery, and Roxanne Arsenault, the CAB’s Artistic Programming Director, worked together to bring this exhibition to life. The relationship between the two curators and the 83-year-old artist deepened throughout this careful process, opening the doors to a profound understanding of her work. The intimacy of the exhibition is a result of the trust built between the three women.
Above all, we had the privilege of spending many hours with Marion in her home studio. We got access to valuable archives: a treasure chest of anecdotes, worn photographs, tattered notebooks bursting with sketches, photocopies used for preparing works, and everything else that represents her life as an artist. These artefacts let us delve into Marion’s process in a way that would not have been possible without this trust. We’re happy to have a selection of these pieces presented in the exhibition Cyclops and Other Tales.
To purchase tickets for the exhibition, please visit the National Gallery’s webpage.
Art works
