The Compelling and Inquisitive Ambiguity :

Photographs by Claude Cahun 

Claude Cahun was born Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob in 1894 in Nantes, France.At the age of 18 she began experimenting is photography, producing self reflective portraits of herself. By 1919 at the age of 25, after considering several alter egos she settled on the sexually ambiguous name of Claude Cahun. She often worked together with her step-sister, who also became her life partner: Suzanne Malherebe who adopted the pseudonym Marcel Moore. Together they were political activists in opposition to the Nazi regime, "the women collaborated on a relentless campaign of resistance. Secretly publishing anti-Nazi propaganda flyers that presented the German campaign as a losing battle, they signed them "der Soldat ohne Namen (the soldier with no name)." (Smith) Eventually under Nazi-regime the were both tried and sentenced to death, all their property was seized and much of the artwork created in their period together was destroyed. Luckily their executions were not carried out and they both survived their imprisonment and were released in 1944(Cahun) and 1945 (Moore). Cahun wrote while in prison " We' essentially against nationalisms, separatisms, that is (against)war."

                                  Claude Cahun                        Marcel Moore 

The photographs of Claude Cahun that did survive explore the realms of gender. She challenged the art movement at the time: Surrealism's interpretation of women as the wild, irrational, erotic subconscious muse who was complemented by the rational man. Cahun's  tableaus depict a somewhat unified non-gender specific whole. Her work represents the work of the auteur who orchestrates careful compositions and costume and photographic manipulation to bring together a seamless work of art beyond gender and at times reality. It's hard to know the extent of Moore's participation in the creation of these images but seen in the photograph to the right is Cahun with an elongated head (photo-manipulation) only accentuated her choice of a black drape on her chest flattening out visually the bust- devoid of gender also emphasized by her shaved head.  As stated in the intro to our reading: Author/Auteur: Feminist Literary Theory and Feminism in Film , " I would say that is has been the project to work with and against narrative, shifting the place of the look, playing with genre/gender crossing and reversal, image-voice disjunctures, and other codes of narrative construction..." (de Laurentis)   

 

In my opinion Cahun was quite 

the innovative vision at the time, 

in her artwork and activism.  Her

 concept of unity and representation

 of a whole and powerful character

 beyond societal norms is quite evident 

in her images. Her role of auteur and 

author beaming through. 

Bibliography: 

Claude Cahun as Anti-Nazi Resistance Fighter by Katherine Smith :
http://www.nyu.edu/greyart/exhibits/odysseys/Nazi/body_nazi.html

Claude Cahun :
http://bookslesbouquins.wordpress.com/tag/claude-cahun/

Auteur Theory: 
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/44609/auteur-theory