Claude Cahun was a French poet and photographer, born in 1894. Originally named Lucy, Cahun took up a more ambiguous name in terms of gender identity. Her work focuses mainly of her discovery and exploration of identity, particularly gender identity.
Most of her work are self portraits in order to help her understand her sense of self.
'The Art Story' says "Cahun's exploration of self is relentless and at times unsettling. From circus performer, clothed in layers of artifice, to a stripped-down Buddhist monk grounded by integrity, Cahun is engaged in an ongoing dialogue with multiplicity. ", which tells us that this journey of discovering herself never came to a conclusion. Perhaps it couldn't have a conclusion as the self is always evolving, and all that she could record was her present self which would be irrelevant to how she felt in the future. Or perhaps all her past selves made up a new sense of self which would then keep evolving.
In her time, gender roles were very strong and certainly not as openly fluid as they have evolved to be today. To rise against these was seen as extremely rebellious, and now she's seen as ahead of her time.
She identified herself as 'neuter', which would be the equivalent of 'gender neutral' today - void of gender. After all, gender is a social concept and as humans made it, humans can bend it.
Cahun was a Surrealist, bending the rules of the norm.
A really interesting part of 'The Art Story's article on Cahun was that they said
"Influenced by Cahun's theatrical works, Sherman and Wearing both later explore the assumption of multiple 'masked' personas, recalling together Joan Rivière's classic paper on women who employ "womanliness as masquerade" (1929). Woodman however, followed on from Cahun's later, more organic, outdoor photographs. Entwined by seaweed, enveloped in vegetation, and submerged in water, both artists exquisitely combine eros and thanatos in the grand setting of nature."
I have been looking at the works of Sherman and Woodman to help me understand the direction I want my work to lean towards and to also look at work of artists I connect to the emotions of. I love and have been inspired by both of these artists, and I wasn't aware Cahun was a major influence to their work, too. Now that I think about it I can certainly see the links and the influence Cahun had on the works of Woodman and Sherman, namely the themes of identity and questioning society and the inner self.
This image speaks to me a lot, and to be quite honest i'm not sure why.
I love how ambiguous the image is, and the many ways it can be read by a viewer. I love the actual subjects and how she forces herself into her environment, and I love how her arm breaks the perfect organisation of the cupboard.
She appears to be in the role of a young girl, shown by her outfit, and the suggestion that she's having a day nap due to the lighting in the image.
In an essay by Danielle Knafo, it's suggested that
"Cahun's unconscious search for her mother is further revealed in her powerful need to return to the comfort of the womb. In one photograph, for instance, she is depicted as a true femme-enfant; in pigtails and bobby socks, with bow in hair, she literally curls up in a fetal position and dozes on a shelf inside a womb-like cupboard. (As a child, she was known to have hidden under the kitchen table to seek refuge from family turmoil.)"
The image could, therefore, represent a longing for motherly love and care. The image had a kind of peaceful sadness to it and this possible context forces the viewer to emphasise with her position. We reflect upon our own lives; where would we be without our mothers? And if the mother isn't in our lives we may simply be able to see ourselves within Cahun's role.
I also see this as a way that perhaps society saw her and what she wanted to escape from. Her role as a young girl, and her placement on the shelf suggests to me that Cahun was seen as an object, like a doll on a shelf. There to look pretty until she was needed, and when she wasn't, she'd be shoved on a shelf carelessly, her arm falling from the bed she was given. It seems to me to be an image looking back on her past, and perhaps a part of why she wasn't comfortable identifying as female. She then embodies most women of the time, seen as being able to be discarded until useful again.
Or, the image could simply be her embracing her inner child that we're often forced to pretend to leave behind despite it always being with us. Cahun was quite the rebel for her time after all.
Cahun clearly takes a very different role in this image ('self-portrait', 1928). She appears masculine and challenging, rather than peaceful and objectified. She is the strong one here.
In an essay by Christy Wampole, she describes this image alongside two others; "The ensemble of her gestures (facial, postural, sartorial) says, “I am ambiguous to you. Neuter. You can make neither heads nor tails of me. I provoke your metaxyphobia, your fear of the in-between. I challenge you to a duel of gazes. Who looks away first loses.” "
I would have to agree with Wampole, and I find the way that the image has been presented incredibly powerful. As Wampole says, Cahun forces the viewer to question the state of the artist's identity, causing them to try to choose whether she is boy or girl, male or female. And you simply cannot. It causes the audience to challenge their own ideas of gender and identity, ask themselves where the artist sits and come to the conclusion they are on either end of the spectrum. Acceptance of gender as a spectrum is incredibly recent and depending on where in the world you are is still incredibly controversial. True, for decades there have been cross dressers, but they were perhaps not celebrated in a way that was for anything other than cis straight people's entertainment. Acceptance of people who refuse to identify as man or woman in everyday society is still something most of the world needs to improve on. It's drummed into our minds from a young age that there are men and there are women. The subject of gender as a spectrum and sex being more than penis and vagina (for example, intersex), is seldom touched upon. And so this work questions that. For the time of the work, this was far less accepted than it is now, people didn't have social media to become exposed to others all over the world uniting with this sense of gender spectrum.
In this image in particular, we see the two ends of the gender spectrum. Her masculine side stares directly at us, challenging us, letting us know who's boss. The way the collar is held is perhaps defensive but also professional, as if straightening her suit. The shaven hair that's typically seen as a male cut and the highlights on the arched nose and forehead give that masculine appeal. Yet her reflection is more feminine, averting the gaze of the audience in a more passive way, looking beautifully away as something to be looked at in awe. The lighting emphasises her jawline and cheekbones, and slim down her chin and forehead. Her reflection takes on a more graceful and feminine role than her original, opening her jacket to reveal her bare skin and collarbones to please the eye of man, a voyeur, if you will.
The two identities conflict but it doesn't matter to the artist, for she is both of these people. In her own words, behind that mask is another mask. No matter how much you look into this, another image qill make you question it all over again. Our obsession with other's identity is forced to emerge through her images because of the amount of layers her imagery holds.
Knafo, in her essay, asks;
When an artist assumes multiple roles in her work, is it due to a sense of security that allows her to play with her boundaries of self and identity? Is it rather that she has no clear sense of herself and, through disguise, desperately seeks to discover her true self? Is such an artist merely exaggerating the traditionally feminine connection between artifice and self-image? Does she exemplify the postmodernist claim that there is no such thing as a stable, cohesive self, that one's identity is constantly changing and merely a matter of construction and perception? Is she correctly viewed as a feminist heroine who has succeeded in taking her image in her own hands? Or is she a lost soul who exchanges mask for masquerade in a never-ending game of charades?
And I don't think there is an answer. Perhaps Cahun is all of these things or none at all. I believe people have an incredible amount of layers that not even they can understand, and photography was a way for Cahun to understand herself and question the notion of identity as a whole, therefore making an audience also question this societal value.
Cahun's work is rather inspiring to me. While I feel visually our works differ greatly, the premise is very similar. I want to explore my identity in the modern world, perhaps not on a gender basis but where I stand and how I feel. How my mind works and what consequences that gives me, and taking on personas and characters to explore these layers.
I adore the way each image is so different. While I am still very much interested in a visually linked series, the way that she shows herself, even as a character that may have some qualities of her true self, is beautiful. To think these personas up, they must be inside of her and therefore are her, even if just fractionally. And the way all of these fractions are shown is so many different ways to make the audience keep questioning is brilliant because it doesn't let an audience settle. It's an ongoing battle with themselves.
the art story : https://www.theartstory.org/artist-cahun-claude.htm
CLAUDE CAHUN: THE THIRD SEX, Danielle Knafo : https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249059134_Claude_Cahun_The_Third_Sex
The Impudence of Claude Cahun, Christy Wampole : https://search-proquest-com.uos.idm.oclc.org/docview/1400625200?accountid=17074&pq-origsite=summon
Most of her work are self portraits in order to help her understand her sense of self.
'The Art Story' says "Cahun's exploration of self is relentless and at times unsettling. From circus performer, clothed in layers of artifice, to a stripped-down Buddhist monk grounded by integrity, Cahun is engaged in an ongoing dialogue with multiplicity. ", which tells us that this journey of discovering herself never came to a conclusion. Perhaps it couldn't have a conclusion as the self is always evolving, and all that she could record was her present self which would be irrelevant to how she felt in the future. Or perhaps all her past selves made up a new sense of self which would then keep evolving.
In her time, gender roles were very strong and certainly not as openly fluid as they have evolved to be today. To rise against these was seen as extremely rebellious, and now she's seen as ahead of her time.
She identified herself as 'neuter', which would be the equivalent of 'gender neutral' today - void of gender. After all, gender is a social concept and as humans made it, humans can bend it.
Cahun was a Surrealist, bending the rules of the norm.
A really interesting part of 'The Art Story's article on Cahun was that they said
"Influenced by Cahun's theatrical works, Sherman and Wearing both later explore the assumption of multiple 'masked' personas, recalling together Joan Rivière's classic paper on women who employ "womanliness as masquerade" (1929). Woodman however, followed on from Cahun's later, more organic, outdoor photographs. Entwined by seaweed, enveloped in vegetation, and submerged in water, both artists exquisitely combine eros and thanatos in the grand setting of nature."
I have been looking at the works of Sherman and Woodman to help me understand the direction I want my work to lean towards and to also look at work of artists I connect to the emotions of. I love and have been inspired by both of these artists, and I wasn't aware Cahun was a major influence to their work, too. Now that I think about it I can certainly see the links and the influence Cahun had on the works of Woodman and Sherman, namely the themes of identity and questioning society and the inner self.
This image speaks to me a lot, and to be quite honest i'm not sure why.
I love how ambiguous the image is, and the many ways it can be read by a viewer. I love the actual subjects and how she forces herself into her environment, and I love how her arm breaks the perfect organisation of the cupboard.
She appears to be in the role of a young girl, shown by her outfit, and the suggestion that she's having a day nap due to the lighting in the image.
In an essay by Danielle Knafo, it's suggested that
"Cahun's unconscious search for her mother is further revealed in her powerful need to return to the comfort of the womb. In one photograph, for instance, she is depicted as a true femme-enfant; in pigtails and bobby socks, with bow in hair, she literally curls up in a fetal position and dozes on a shelf inside a womb-like cupboard. (As a child, she was known to have hidden under the kitchen table to seek refuge from family turmoil.)"
The image could, therefore, represent a longing for motherly love and care. The image had a kind of peaceful sadness to it and this possible context forces the viewer to emphasise with her position. We reflect upon our own lives; where would we be without our mothers? And if the mother isn't in our lives we may simply be able to see ourselves within Cahun's role.
I also see this as a way that perhaps society saw her and what she wanted to escape from. Her role as a young girl, and her placement on the shelf suggests to me that Cahun was seen as an object, like a doll on a shelf. There to look pretty until she was needed, and when she wasn't, she'd be shoved on a shelf carelessly, her arm falling from the bed she was given. It seems to me to be an image looking back on her past, and perhaps a part of why she wasn't comfortable identifying as female. She then embodies most women of the time, seen as being able to be discarded until useful again.
Or, the image could simply be her embracing her inner child that we're often forced to pretend to leave behind despite it always being with us. Cahun was quite the rebel for her time after all.
Cahun clearly takes a very different role in this image ('self-portrait', 1928). She appears masculine and challenging, rather than peaceful and objectified. She is the strong one here.
In an essay by Christy Wampole, she describes this image alongside two others; "The ensemble of her gestures (facial, postural, sartorial) says, “I am ambiguous to you. Neuter. You can make neither heads nor tails of me. I provoke your metaxyphobia, your fear of the in-between. I challenge you to a duel of gazes. Who looks away first loses.” "
I would have to agree with Wampole, and I find the way that the image has been presented incredibly powerful. As Wampole says, Cahun forces the viewer to question the state of the artist's identity, causing them to try to choose whether she is boy or girl, male or female. And you simply cannot. It causes the audience to challenge their own ideas of gender and identity, ask themselves where the artist sits and come to the conclusion they are on either end of the spectrum. Acceptance of gender as a spectrum is incredibly recent and depending on where in the world you are is still incredibly controversial. True, for decades there have been cross dressers, but they were perhaps not celebrated in a way that was for anything other than cis straight people's entertainment. Acceptance of people who refuse to identify as man or woman in everyday society is still something most of the world needs to improve on. It's drummed into our minds from a young age that there are men and there are women. The subject of gender as a spectrum and sex being more than penis and vagina (for example, intersex), is seldom touched upon. And so this work questions that. For the time of the work, this was far less accepted than it is now, people didn't have social media to become exposed to others all over the world uniting with this sense of gender spectrum.
In this image in particular, we see the two ends of the gender spectrum. Her masculine side stares directly at us, challenging us, letting us know who's boss. The way the collar is held is perhaps defensive but also professional, as if straightening her suit. The shaven hair that's typically seen as a male cut and the highlights on the arched nose and forehead give that masculine appeal. Yet her reflection is more feminine, averting the gaze of the audience in a more passive way, looking beautifully away as something to be looked at in awe. The lighting emphasises her jawline and cheekbones, and slim down her chin and forehead. Her reflection takes on a more graceful and feminine role than her original, opening her jacket to reveal her bare skin and collarbones to please the eye of man, a voyeur, if you will.
The two identities conflict but it doesn't matter to the artist, for she is both of these people. In her own words, behind that mask is another mask. No matter how much you look into this, another image qill make you question it all over again. Our obsession with other's identity is forced to emerge through her images because of the amount of layers her imagery holds.
Knafo, in her essay, asks;
When an artist assumes multiple roles in her work, is it due to a sense of security that allows her to play with her boundaries of self and identity? Is it rather that she has no clear sense of herself and, through disguise, desperately seeks to discover her true self? Is such an artist merely exaggerating the traditionally feminine connection between artifice and self-image? Does she exemplify the postmodernist claim that there is no such thing as a stable, cohesive self, that one's identity is constantly changing and merely a matter of construction and perception? Is she correctly viewed as a feminist heroine who has succeeded in taking her image in her own hands? Or is she a lost soul who exchanges mask for masquerade in a never-ending game of charades?
And I don't think there is an answer. Perhaps Cahun is all of these things or none at all. I believe people have an incredible amount of layers that not even they can understand, and photography was a way for Cahun to understand herself and question the notion of identity as a whole, therefore making an audience also question this societal value.
Cahun's work is rather inspiring to me. While I feel visually our works differ greatly, the premise is very similar. I want to explore my identity in the modern world, perhaps not on a gender basis but where I stand and how I feel. How my mind works and what consequences that gives me, and taking on personas and characters to explore these layers.
I adore the way each image is so different. While I am still very much interested in a visually linked series, the way that she shows herself, even as a character that may have some qualities of her true self, is beautiful. To think these personas up, they must be inside of her and therefore are her, even if just fractionally. And the way all of these fractions are shown is so many different ways to make the audience keep questioning is brilliant because it doesn't let an audience settle. It's an ongoing battle with themselves.
the art story : https://www.theartstory.org/artist-cahun-claude.htm
CLAUDE CAHUN: THE THIRD SEX, Danielle Knafo : https://www.researchgate.net/publication/249059134_Claude_Cahun_The_Third_Sex
The Impudence of Claude Cahun, Christy Wampole : https://search-proquest-com.uos.idm.oclc.org/docview/1400625200?accountid=17074&pq-origsite=summon
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