Artiste vidéo, réalisateur, compositeur de formation. Figure majeure dans le domaine de la création vidéo, issu des frontières entre les arts, il est un pionnier dans l'utilisation des instruments électroniques.

Après des études de composition en musique concrète au Service de la Recherche de l'ORTF (avec entre autres Michel Chion), diplômé du CNSM de Paris (classe Pierre Schaeffer) en 1971, il devient compositeur du Groupe de Recherches Musicales de l'ORTF et poursuit expérimentation et création dans les domaines du son mais aussi de l'image. Il s'oriente vers le médium de la vidéo dès 1970, appliquant les expérimentations techniques et linguistiques de la musique concrète.

Le travail de Robert Cahen est reconnaissable à sa manière de traiter le ralenti, à sa façon d'explorer le son en relation avec l'image pour construire son univers poétique. Il multiplie les effets de glissement, d'altération du mouvement, de contraction et de dilatation du temps – procédés qui lui permettent d'explorer la métaphore du passage, la mémoire d'images qui viennent et disparaissent, d'interroger le temps qui passe.

Les œuvres de Robert Cahen sont présentes dans différentes collections publiques en France et à l'étranger

ZKM de Karlsruhe, Centre pour l'Image Contemporaine de Genève, AIACE à Milan, Museum of Modern Art de New York (MoMA), Frac/Alsace, Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain de Strasbourg (MAMCS), Centre Pompidou, Harris Museum à Preston...
Le Jeu de Paume (Paris) accueille en 2010 une rétrospective complète de ses films et vidéos.
Lauréat de la Villa Médicis Hors les Murs en 1992, il réalise en 1995 une installation vidéo permanente à Lille sur le site Euralille.
Un coffret contenant une grande partie de sa production est sorti en 2011 (écart production), incluant un CD de ses premières compositions musicales.
Le MAMCS lui consacre une exposition en 2014 sur le thème de « l’entrevoir ».

Robert Cahen est distribué par

Heure Exquise (Mons-en-Baroeul, France)
Electronic Arts Intermix (New York, State of New York, USA)
Inter Media Art Institute (Düsseldorf, Allemagne)

Robert Cahen est représenté dans les galeries

Galerie Jean-François Kaiser (Strasbourg, France)

Galerie Lucien Schweitzer (Howald, Luxembourg)

Biographie

2016
Galerie Jean-François Kaiser, exposition Retable.
TOMBE 3X
Palais de Glace, Buenos Aires, rétrospective films et vidéos.
Tongyeong, International Music Festival.
Mémoriale Pierre Boulez, Installation.

2015
«Traverse» MAM , Museum of Art Macau,
exposition d’installations vidéo juin/septembre 2015, commissaire Weng Chiao.
« Temps contre Temps » Musée du Temps Besançon, commissaires Emmanuel Guigon/Laurence Reibel.
Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres.

2014
Entrevoir, Robert Cahen
Musée d'Art Moderne et Contemporain,Strasbourg.
Commissaire Héloise Conésa
Exposition d'installations vidéo à Manizales, Festival del Imagen, Colombie.
Dirige un atelier vidéo à Bakou , Azerbaidjan
YARAT, espace d’art contemporain - Baku.

2013
Séminaire et exposition d’installations vidéo
Patagonia International Experimental Documentary.
Festival , PAFID  à El Bolson, Argentina.
Installations vidéo in situ «  La peinture en mouvement »
Musée des Unterlinden ,Colmar.France.
Participe à Wanderung au CEAAC Strasbourg.
Tournage en Corée avec Marie Hélène Bernard.

2012
Alchemy Film and Moving Image Festival
"Fugitive beauty: the films of Robert Cahen", first retrospectiv Hawick – Scotland
Documentaire sur grand écran "Les Fantômes du Réel", Paris.
Mois de la Photo à l'Hotel de Sauroy - "Le temps des Lucioles", photos et vidéo, Paris – Commissaire Laura Serani.
Cinema & Rete - Colloque International des études cinématographique, Rome.

2011
Exposition "Narrating the Invisible" au ZKM, Centre des Arts et des Médias,
Karlsruhe, Allemagne - curator Chiara Marchini.
Exposition "D'un coté de l'autre" à la Galerie Lucien Schweitzer, Luxembourg.
Exposition "du visible à l'invisible", Galerie Banditzaros,
Seoul - curator Sujung Shin.
"Voyager / Rencontrer" Exposition d'installations vidéo au Minsheng artMuseum, Shanghai – curator Hou Hanru (dec2011/janvier2012).

2010
Rétrospective Cinéma et Vidéo au Jeu de Paume, Paris.
Tournage en Géorgie,
Biennale Picha à Lubumbashi, Congo, RDC.
Professeur associé à l'Ecole Le Fresnoy, studio national des arts contemporains - Tourcoing.France.

2009
Exposition à Preston, UK, Harris Museum
"Passaggi", exposition à Lucca Italie, Fondazione Ragghianti.
"Il respiro del tempo" de Sandra Lischi, nouvelle edition avec DVD, Edition
ETS PISA, Italie.

2008
Exposition d'installations au City Hall de Hong Kong,Chine  (dans le cadre du French May Hong Kong).
Exposition au Kunsthaus Baselland, Muttenz, Suisse.

2007
Exposition avec Marcel Odenbach à Buenos Aires à la Telefonica. Argentine
"Cahen s'installe" exposition au Musée des Beaux Arts de Fukuoka (Kyushu) Japon et à l'Institut franco-japonais de Tokyo, Japon.

2004
Biennale de Shanghai "Techniques of the visible,"
Mission au Svalbard, tournage "Le Cercle".

2001
"Canton la Chinoise" documentaire co-réalisé avec Rob Rombout.

2000-2007
Tournages et rétrospectives vidéo en Chine, Vietnam, Japon,
Yémen,Azerbaidjan, Ouzbekistan, Argentine, Colombie,
Pérou, Italie, Norvège…

1999
Video Viewpoint au MoMa de New York.
Festival de Mumbai, India, Rétrospective films et vidéo. Fait partie du Jury International.

1997
1ere exposition d'installation vidéo au Frac / Alsace.

1996
Installation vidéo permanente à Lille sur le site Euralille, 
France- commande publique.

1995
Internationaler Videokunstpreis du ZKM pour "Sept Visions Fugitives" Karlsruhe , Allemagne.

1994
Lazer d'or du Festival vidéo de Locarno.

1993
Rétrospective films et vidéo à Pékin.
Rencontres dans les Ecoles des Beaux Arts de Wuhan,
Hangzhou, Shanghai et Canton.
Tournage des images de "7 visions fugitives".
Rétrospective à la Cinématheque française. 
Prix du CEAAC Strasbourg.

1992
Bourse de la Villa Medicis Hors les Murs.
Tournage en Antarctique, accompagné de Angela Riesco.
"Il respiro del tempo" (Le souffle du Temps) livre de Sandra Lischi : Films et vidéo de Robert Cahen Edition ETS, PISA, Italie.

1990
Chili, organisation du Xeme Festival Franco-Chilien.
Tournage à l'Ile de Pâques réalisation de "L'ile Mystérieuse".
Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid, rétrospective films et vidéos.

1987
Documenta 7
Premier voyage au Chili pour le Festival Franco Chilien,
réalisation de "Chili Impressions".

1986
Tournage à Hong Kong.

1985
Réalisation de "Boulez-Repons", sur la musique de Pierre Boulez.

1984

Pierre Boulez et Robert Cahen. Tournage de « Répons », de Pierre Boulez, au Centre Pompidou.

1983
"Juste le temps" primé à San Sébastian, Espagne.

1980
Prix "Art et Informatique" du Ministère de la Culture avec "Armatic".

1977
Voyage à New York, avec Michel Chion,
rencontre avec Bill Etra et Nam June Paik.

1976
Chargé de Recherche à l'Institut National de l'Audiovisuel, Paris.
Dirige l'atelier de vidéo expérimentale de l’I.N.A.

1971-1976
Compositeur du GRM de l'ORTF, Chercheur et Responsable de la vidéo expérimentale au Service de la Recherche de l'ORTF.
Musée d'art moderne de la ville de Paris: performance, film, vidéo, musique
"La parole de l'un, le silence de l'autre " avec Michel Chion.

Exposition de collages (1975), Piazza Di Spagna, Rome, curator Silvana Manni.

1971
Diplôme du Conservatoire National Supérieur de Musique de Paris (classe Pierre Schaeffer).

1969-1971
Stage du Groupe de Recherche Musicale (GRM) de l'ORTF, Paris.

1956
Etudes de piano et d'orgue au Conservatoire de Mulhouse.

1946
Sa famille, cachée dans la Drôme pendant la guerre, se retrouve à Mulhouse.

1945
Né à Valence, France.

Introduction of "The sight of time - films and videos by Robert Cahen"

Sandra Lischi, 1997, Edizioni ETS, Pisa, Italy.

Robert Cahen is one of the most important and internationally renowned artists in the realm of experimental video. Right from the early 1970s, he was among the first Europeans to tackle the technology of electronic imagery and to employ new machines, testing their effects and attempting, like a pioneer, to extract their fullest expressive potential.

Two aspects of Cahen's background must be taken into account straight away, namely his musical training and his professional debut with ORTF, the French national radio and TV broadcasting corporation. Indeed, Cahen's musical past   with Pierre Schaeffer's school of concrete music  profoundly influenced both his working methods and his poetics (evident later in his approach to video images). His early career at ORTF's research department, meanwhile, gave him an extraordinarily unique grasp, in Europe, of the universe of machines, technicians, picture archives and broadcasting. Cahen continued to keep in touch with that special little world even after his contract came to an end, and he is now considered one of the leading artists at the Institut National de I'Audiovisuel (INA), which has spearheaded audiovisual research in France ever since the breakup of ORTF. First musician and photographer, then film director and video artist, the fifty one yearold Cahen is one of the most award winning video artists in the world today. In a rather rare distinction, almost , all his work has been broadcast on TV channels both in France and abroad, while certain short films have even been projected in movie theaters. Furthermore, Cahen's work has been acquired by major museums and is distributed in the form of video disks. His success can be explained in various ways, but must above all be placed in the French context, a context characterized by real sensitivity to new imagery, by institutional dynamism, and by the presence of a certain number of artists who produce high quality material thanks to collective structures of support and promotion, enabling them to maintain ongoing relationships with research units, festivals, production units and sometimes even television stations.

In addition to a cultural landscape more open than most to novelty (at least on the level of national production), the French context includes a "pioneering" cultural infrastructure that emerged and grew within conventional television broadcasting ‑ one need merely think of Jean­Christophe Averty's innovative programs of the 1960s, embodying his search for a creative and pertinent visual language enhanced by all the possibilities of electronic imagery (the importance of Averty's role is stressed in Anne‑Marie Duguet's Jean‑ Christophe Averty, Paris: Dis­Voir, 1991).

Cahen's work, then, honors a twin heritage ‑ on the one hand, it maintains an unbroken dialogue with research centers and institutions, enabling Cahen to cultivate an environment of creative liberty and challenging commissions, while on the other hand it exploits resources of electronic technology in a way that orients the oeuvre toward experimental art (although one marked by a true determination to communicate).

Cahen nevertheless stands apart from other French video artists. Unlike them, he has never been interested in advertising (TV commercials, fashion shows, music videos) and has always deliberately focused on the cultural milieu (museums, centers of performing arts, public institutions). His relationship with TV stations has never been perverted by "fashionable" projects, and his video work has never been subservient or self‑indulgent. He is not one of those French creators of a rather widespread genre of "new variety prograins" (like the videoperettas that rejuvenate traditional TV with magical effects produced by electronic imagery and digital technology). Nor, however, does Cahen belong to the category of artists who deliberately draw inspiration, in various ways, from literary works.

As a musician who adopts a poetic approach to images, Cahen is primarily inspired by the image itself and what it evokes. That constitutes the key visual core of the work of this artist who still remains hard to classify. Yet Cahen's overall oeuvre also engages with and recasts stereotyped genres like documentary, fiction, and news reports, along with more recent, less traditional genres like dance videos.

Cahen did not follow the shift from abstract imagery in the 1970s to the "new narrative" of the 1980s. His approach, although varied across time, has been consistently characterized by "mixed" techniques and thematic choices, as well as by a constant process of assembly and dissociation. His works simultaneously give the impression of reality and of a radical break with that reality by constantly combining and contrasting abstraction and representation, invention and convention, the rejection of narrative and the adoption of fiction. Furthermore, Cahen's oeuvre mixes and mingles photographic and cinematic conventions, musical and pictorial traditions and innovations, and video effects, not to mention tactics borrowed from the contemporary visual arts.

Like many artists, Cahen focuses essentially on perception   indeed, he experiments relentlessly in order to forge a new vision thanks to the help of powerful electronic tools. But, unlike many video artists, his research is not directed solely on the capacities of equipment and technology, nor does it yield lab experiments that may be rich on the conceptual level but impoverished on the emotional level. The attention Cahen pays to a gesture, color or movement (via slow motion, temporal alterations, recoloring, etc.) is an incitement to see the world with new eyes, to grasp the intimate poetry of a place, to perceive the silliness of a gesture or the unwitting irony of a stereotyped image, and to appreciate the gentle delight or unexpectedly painful seriousness of things.

When combined with various levels of potential interpretation, all of these factors serve as the basis of Cahen's success, a success acclaimed by the general public as well as by specialists. They explain why TV stations (private and public channels in France, Channel Four in Britain, RAI in Italy and RTVE in Spain), research centers ("The Kitchen" in New York, the Pompidou Center, Musée d'Orsay, IRCAM, and Vidéothèque in Paris, etc), and festivals the world over follow Cahen's output with interest, requesting and screening each new work.

Taken collectively, these elements   combined above all with a working method that eschews the mega productions and wastage of commercial movies and television in favor of a type of collective electronic craft forged with the help of outstanding colleagues  justify Cahen's international success even as they provide the ingredients required for theoretical reflection.

Taken collectively, these elements   combined above all with a working method that eschews the mega productions and wastage of commercial movies and television in favor of a type of collective electronic craft forged with the help of outstanding colleagues  justify Cahen's international success even as they provide the ingredients required for theoretical reflection.

Cahen's work incorporates a number of issues closely linked to the fact that over the past twenty five years he has been interested in fields as varied as music and dance, photography and art, theater and urban environments. His research is profoundly influenced by his musings on temporality (authentic time and supernatural time), on ways of recounting (an eternal balance between narrative and abstraction), on movies (which he admires and to which he willingly alludes), on image and sound (in constant mutual feedback), and on reality both familiar and deformed. Nor should it be forgotten that his musical influences, different as they are from the ones usually cited by video artists (the Fluxus movement, John Cage, etc.), provided Cahen with numerous original stimuli. Tracing Cahen's profile across the manifold works he has produced (well over fifty since 1971) demands appreciation not only of his specific experience but also of other, more general qualities   namely the poetic feel to his works, the subtle and tender humor underlying them, their briefness, his sparing use of speech, his mastery of electronic effects, suspense, and the traces of "micro stories" contained in every video. It all adds up to a corpus of work that testifies to a particular attention and total commitment to key features of experimentation, at the same time attaining an intelligent balance between aesthetic rigor and pure emotion. His work follows several lines of research, grasping and clarifying a great number of theoretical issues, offering numerous productive solutions. In fact, Cahen is an artist who opens far more doors than an initial critical analysis of his work might indicate. Obviously, all these ideas and issues cannot not be exhaustively addressed and systematically elucidated in this, the first monograph devoted to Robert Cahen; instead, they will be noted and discussed as they arise. Yet it is these ideas and issues that render his aesthetic research richer and more interesting, confirming the importance of an artist whose work manages to go beyond the initial experimental phase, becoming as fertile on, the conceptual level as it is efficient on the production level.

Sandra Lischi, 1997

Portrait de famille, 23’, N/B, 16mm (1971)

Images du carnaval de Bâle, 23’, couleur, super 8 (1973)

L’invitation au voyage, 9’, couleur (1973)

Karine, 8’19, N/B, 16mm (1976)

Ici repose, 6’, couleur, 35mm (1977)

Sans titre, (étude expérimentale), 13’, couleur (1977)

Sur le quai, 10’, N/B, 16mm (1978)

Arrêt sur marche, 8’30, N/B, 35mm (1979)

Horizontales couleurs, 14’ (1979)

L’éclipse, 3’ (1979)

Trompe-l’oeil, 7’, couleur (1979)

La gare de Lyon, 17’, couleur, 16mm (1980)

Le Musée Gustave Moreau, 12’, couleur, 16mm (1980)

L’entr’aperçu, 9’, couleur (1980)

Artmatic, 4’15, couleur (1981)

À propos d’ « Un célibataire à Paris », 11’, couleur, 16mm (1982)

L’envers du décor, 11’, couleur (1982)

L’oubliée, coréalisation Alain Longuet, 5’, couleur (1982)

Place de la Concorde, 53’, couleur (1982)

Juste le temps, 13’, couleur (1983)

La recherche instrumentale à l’IRCAM, 17’, couleur (1983)

La danse de l’épervier, 13’, couleur (1984)

Boulez-Répons, 43’, couleur (1985)

Cartes postales vidéo, coréalisation S. Huter et A. Longuet, 450 x 30sec, (1984-1986), couleur (1986)

Parti sans laisser d’adresse, 14’, couleur (1986)

Regards/Danse, 11’, couleur (1986)

Instantanés, 3 portraits, 3’ chaque, couleur (1987) (Stoppa, Manoury, Lancino)

Montenvers et Mer de glace, coréalisation S. Huter, 8’, couleur (1987)

Parcelle de ciel, 18’, couleur (1987)

Dernier adieu, 6’, couleur (1988)

Le deuxième jour, 8’, couleur (1988)

Chili impressions, 12’30, couleur (1989)

Hong-Kong Song, collaboration Ermeline Le Mézo, 21’, couleur (1989)

La Tour Eiffel, 1’, couleur (1989)

Solo, 4’, couleur (1989)

La collection – sur Beaubourg, 1’40 x 16, couleur (1990)

On the bridge, 4’, couleur (1990)

Rodin/Fragments, 20’, N/B, 35mm (1990)

Latitude 43, 8’, couleur (1991)

L’ île mystérieuse, 16’, couleur (1991)

La notte delle Bugie, 10’30, couleur (1993)

Voyage d’hiver, collaboration Angela Riesco, 18’, couleur (1993)

Sept visions fugitives, 32’ (1995)

Corps flottants, 12’, couleur (1997)

Sept Visions fugitives, installation vidéo, 1997 – collection Frac/Alsace

Paysages/Passage, installation vidéo 1997– collection Frac/Alsace

Suaire, installation vidéo 1997 – collection Frac/Alsace

Tombe avec les objets, installation vidéo, 1997 – collection Frac/Alsace

Compositeurs à l’écoute, 31’ (1998)

50 ans de Musique Concrete au G.R.M.

Tombe avec les mots, installation vidéo, 2000

Traverses, installation vidéo, 2002 – collection du Musée d’Art moderne et contemporain de

Strasbourg 2003 / présentée à la Biennale de Shanghai, septembre 2004

Le Cercle, installation vidéo présentée en Norvège, en Argentine, en Chine

Canton la Chinoise, documentaire de 52’, 2001, coréalisé avec ROB ROMBOUT

L’étreinte, 9’ (2003) Paysages d’hiver, installation vidéo, 2005,

présentée à la Fundacion Telefonica Buenos Aires

Plus loin que la nuit, 10’ (2005)

Sanaa, passages en noir, 7’ (2007)

Françoise en mémoire, installation vidéo, double projection, 2007 – collection du Musée d’Art moderne et contemporain de Strasbourg, 2008

Attention ça tourne, installation vidéo double projection. Coréalisée avec Guido Nussbaum, 2008

Sans Limite, 13’ sur une musique de Gualtiero Dazzi (2007)

Changer le regard, 8’30 (2007)

Blind Song, 4’ (2008)

Red Memory, coréalisé avec John Borst, 9’30 (2010)

Dieu voit tout, 11’ (2011)

Cérémonie, 8’ (2015)

Les vidéos de Robert Cahen sont en distribution à : Heure Exquise ! (Lille), Cinédoc (Paris), Electronic Arts Intermix (New York),

Vidéographe (Montréal), Inter Media Art Institut Düsseldorf et le Lux Center for the Art (Londres).

2011: Robert Cahen Films + Videos 1973 - 2007, Coffret 2DVD (29 films) et 1 CD audio comportant 6 oeuvres musicales inédites ; Livret 80 pages couleur; textes de Stéphane Audeguy et Hou Hanru, éditions Écart production, Strasbourg, France