May I present to you a fantastic gender-neutral surrealist photographer that history sidelined and we need to bring back called Claude Cahun (born Lucy Schwob), who said:
Shuffle the cards. Masculine? Feminine? It depends on the situation. Neuter is the only gender that always suits me.
André Breton called her “one of the most curious spirits of our time”. She exhibited alongside surrealist artists like Dalí and Man Ray.
Her work is mostly self-photography where she questions the limits of sexuality and gender, and anticipates Simone de Beauvoir’s Second Sex theory in that gender is a social construct. For example, in this work, titled Under this Mask, Another Mask. I Will Never Be Finished Removing All These Faces
She very clearly explores gender as a social mask, in which these ‘masks’ accumulate according to social context.
She explores gender in a way that isn’t bothered with defining it all. All her life, Cahun presented herself as androgynous and explored the spectrum of gender in a way that was way ahead of her time.
She lived in what would become occupied France in 1940 with her partner Suzanne Malherbe and began antifascist activity. She was arrested and sentenced to death but was liberated in 1945 by the allies. Her health never really recovered.
David Bowie was a huge fan of her, and she served as perhaps his greatest inspiration. Cahun remained unknown for most of her life until 1980, when Bowie himself commissioned an exhibition of her. About her, he said:
You could call her transgressive or you could call her a cross dressing Man Ray with surrealist tendencies. I find this work really quite mad, in the nicest way. Outside of France and now the UK she has not had the kind of recognition that, as a founding follower, friend and worker of the original surrealist movement, she surely deserves. Meret Oppenheim was not the only one with a short haircut.
Here are some of her absolutely spectacular photos for your pleasure:
Self Portrait (in Cupboard), 1932.
What do You Want From Me?, 1928
Plate no.1 from Aveux non Avenus, 1930
[Image in header is: I’m Training, Don’t Kiss Me (unknown date)]
