Ever since I discovered the photography of Claude Cahun I've been absolutely fascinated with her androgynous persona and use of surrealist imagery. Born in France in 1894 as Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob she began taking photographs in 1912 at the age of 18. For the first few years of her artistic career she mainly focused on self-portraiture, during the course of which she adopted the sexually ambiguous name of Claude. Her long time partner Suzanne Malherbe also adapted to an extremely epicene way of living by taking on the pseudonym of Marcel Moore. Together they created large collaborative publications containing writing, photography, illustration, and collage forging one of the most valuable partnerships in 20th century Paris.
It is incredible how timeless the work they created remains. The utterly bizarre, yet strikingly beautiful documentation of their experiments with constructed gender roles and use of photo-manipulation casts a surreal and lasting impression on contemporary photography.
“Beneath this mask, another mask. I will never be finished lifting off all these faces” -Claude Cahun
I never tire of looking at their photographs!
ReplyDeleteNot only were they gender pioneers and hugely gifted artists, they were also Resistance propagandists on the Island of Jersey during its occupation by the Germans in WWII. They did time on death row.