Born as Lucy Schwob in 1894 Claude Cahun was a French surrealist photographer. Her work plays with gender stereotypes as she is most well now for her androgynous look that challenged strict gender roles at the time shaving her head and dressing in mens attire. In writing Cahun refers to herself as ‘elle’ or she, when asked she described herself as gender fluid.
“Masculine? Feminine? It depends on the situation. Neuter is the only gender that always suits me.” – Cahun’s autobiography ‘Disavowals’
Best known for her self portraiture, in the 1920s Cahun produced a number of images in various personas such as body builder, doll, vampire, aviator, angel and Japanese puppet. She often pulled inspiration from theatre and writing creating complex highly posed tableauxs. Cahun used her work to explore herself and the space in between the binarys of male and female and how she could fluctuate to create art and criticize the societal standards to be one or other.
In 1937 feeling trapped by the political climate in Paris Cahun and her partner Marcel Moore moved to Jersey. During the German occupation of Jersey and the channel islands they became resistance workers and propagandists. Both Moore and Cahun were heavily anti war and worked on producing anti Nazi flyers out of translated BBC reports pasted together often with inks and tonal paper to create poems and criticisms of their regime, they signed them off “der Soldat ohne Namen” (the soldier with no name). In 1944 they were convicted and sentenced to death for undermining the German forces. Their property was seized along with much of both Cahun and Moore’s artwork. They were kept in St Helier prison only released after the islands liberation in may of 1945.
Cahun later died in 1954 it wasn’t until almost 40 years later that her work was recognised she expressed only making work for herself and not wanting to be famous throughout her life she. Claude Cahun is an inspiration for many contemporary artists such Cindy Sherman, Nan Goldin and Gillian Wearing a British contemporary photographer .
Both Wearing and Cahun share a fascination with the self-portrait to explore themes around identity and gender, which is often played out through performance. In this photo she shoots in black and white, recreates the iconic make up on Cahun’s ‘bodybuilder’ and stares straight at the camera taking the most iconic parts of Cahun’s work. Gillian holds a mask with cut out eyes creating a striking silhouette as it contrasts with the plain black background this is an illusion to Claude Cahun’s ideas of personas and masking of the true self.
“Under this mask, another mask. I will never finish removing all these faces.” – ‘Disavowals‘ Claude Cahun, 1930
image analysis
Cahun uses her persona of body builder as an opposition to gender norms, the writing on her body “I AM IN TRAINING DON’T KISS ME” could be a elusion and defiance to the objectification of women this time applied to a male character. The black and white imagine is striking as the contrast between Cahun’s body and the plain black background makes her standout and the details like to hearts on her face and thigh noticeable. The lighting is stark and straight forward with a simple composition making the viewer only focus on Cahun herself.
Emotional Reaction – The image is initially uncomfortable with Cahun staring straight at the camera but fasinating as you read and notice more.
bibliography-
Claude Cahun as Anti-Nazi Resistance Fighter – Grey Art Gallery (nyu.edu)