In many ways, Cahun's life was marked by a sense of role reversal, and her public identity became a commentary upon not only her own, but the public's notions of sexuality, gender, beauty, and logic. Her adoption of a sexually ambiguous name, and her androgynous self-portraits display a revolutionary way of thinking and creating, experimenting with her audience's understanding of photography as a documentation of reality. Her poetry challenged gender roles and attacked the increasingly modern world's social and economic boundaries. Also Cahun's participation in the Parisian Surrealist movement diversified the group's artwork and ushered in new representations. Where most Surrealist artists were men, and their primary images were of women as isolated symbols of eroticism, Cahun epitomized the chameleonic and multiple possibilities of the female identity. Her photographs, writings, and general life as an artistic and political revolutionary continue to influence countless artists, namely Cindy Sherman and Nan Goldin.i think it's unsurprising that i have a very special place in my heart for claude cahun and their art. the 1920s are definitely one of my favourite eras in terms of film, art, fashion, architecture... pretty much all around aesthetically i find it most dear to me. one of my favourite artists working in that era was claude cahun. the playing with identity, the use of photography, art, and clothing to express those different identities... it always stuck with me.
que me veux-tu? (autoportrait double); claude cahun, 1929.
auto-portrait; claude cahun, 1925
i.o.u. (self-pride); claude cahun, 1929-30
"sous se masque, un autre masque. je n'en finirai pas de soulever tous ses visages."
"under this mask, another. i will never succeed in unearthing all of these faces."
unity ball, montreal, 1996 by pierre dalpé
My work deals with the interconnected relationships between the body, identity, disguise, and performance.his beautiful black and white series really strike me with their beauty and the personalities of his subjects contained within the frame. aside from the fact that they raise questions about gender, performativity, drag, and trans identities, they are simply amazingly beautiful.
peter, 1990
alex, 1990
saul, sarah and joanne, 1998
jeffrey and ultra, 1998
the forrest twins, 2008There is no original or primary gender a drag imitates, but gender is a kind of imitation for which there is no original. - Judith Butler, "Imitation and Gender Insubordination" in Inside/Out (1991) edited by Diana Fuss
Masculinity and femininity are like two dialects of the same language. Though we all understand both, most of us "speak" only one. - Esther Newton
Gender is not something that one is, it is something one does, an act… a “doing” rather than a “being.” - Judith Butlerto end things off, recently i have been poring over the pages of gender relations in global perspective, edited by nancy cook. one of my favourite readings so far has been leslie feinberg's "the giveaway," which focuses on how trans people have been treated by various native communities across north america, and the impact of colonization on those people (who are referred to as Two-Spirited). it is a really powerful text, i highly recommend reading it.
The language used by the colonizers [steeped in hatred] to describe the acceptance of sex/gender diversity, and of same-sex love most accurately described the viewer, not the viewed. And these sensational reports about Two-Spirit people were used to further "justify" genocide, the theft of Native land and resources, and destruction of their cultures and religions.
What stunned me (about discovering the Two-Spirit tradition) was that such ancient and diverse cultues allowed people to choose more sex/gender paths, and this diversity of human expression was honored as sacred. I had to chart the complex geography of sex and gender with a compass needle that only pointed to north or south.
.... What was responsible for the imposition of the present-day rigid sex/gender system in North America? It is not correct to simply blame patriarchy, Chrystos stressed to me. "The real word is 'colonization' and what it has done to the world. Patriarchy is a tool of colonization and exploitation of people and their lands."
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