04.Sept.07   

Don't Kiss Me: The Art of Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore  is the first comprehensive overview of the oeuvre of Claude Cahun offers a wealth of previously unpublished photographs and drawings, illuminating not only her work but also that of her partner Marcel Moore and establishing for the first time the extent of their collaboration. It also includes the first thorough account of their Resistance operations, trial, imprisonment and attempted suicides during the Occupation. Cahun (1894-1954) is best known for riveting photographic self-portraits that seem eerily ahead of their time and has become the focus of an almost cultlike following.

Claude Cahun was the pseudonym adopted by the French surrealist born in 1894 as Lucy Schwob. Cahun is recognized worldwide as one of the leading artists of the Surrealist movement. Her work was rediscovered in the 1990s and can be compared with that of Cindy Sherman and Nan Goldin. Cahun used writing and photography to disrupt conventional ideas about gender.  Her images are enigmatic and can be described as rash and subtle, inviting and rejecting, sexual and asexual. 

In the 1930's Claude and her partner, the writer and artist Marcel Moore participated in a range of anti-fascist activities.  In 1937, they left Paris for the Isle of Jersey.  When the Island was occupied during WWII, Cahun and Moore were imprisoned for acts of resistance.  Their house was commandeered by German troops who looted its contents, dispersing the library and destroying many of the artworks and photographs found on the premises.  Despite the fact that what Cahun characterized as "the best of the work" then perished,an intriguing photgraphic and documentary legacy survived.

I am struck by her confidence, self-possession and imagination.  On one level, I appreciate discovering this woman who dared to disregard feminine expectations so publicly and unapologetically.  On another level, I am entralled by her aesthetic sense and command of visual elements.