Essay Example about Claude Cahun
Queer artists have always been an essential part of art and design history, establishing a role of portraying their own identities to the public. Though not typically in the forefront, their works still create a conversation that’s impacted how we see certain themes and events. Works highlight points in time like the AIDS epidemic and early century lesbianism, among others, as they tend to be the most impactful for the artist in particular. For the purpose of this paper, I have decided to expand upon the artist Claude Cahun and their relationship with identity and how it intermingles with sexology starting in the early twentieth century.
Claude Cahun was an early twentieth century artist known for exploring gender identity and surrealism in their photography. Born in France in 1894, Claude spent much of their artistic career developing photography that “challenged the gaze that had become accustomed to objectifying women” (Knafo 36). Many of Claude’s works purposely feature outfits and positions that explore gender, sexuality, and power all in one. They utilize looks that would be seen as more “caricature-like,” as if they were putting on a performance. Though in context within Claude’s own life, this makes sense. They would get themselves caught up in members of the avant-garde and surrealist movements that too had the same thoughts and experimentations with gender as Claude did. These sorts of connections in their career resulted in their ever-growing artistic pursuits of performance and portraits.
One of Calude’s more well known photography portraits goes by the name Autoportrait (variante I’m in training…). This piece, created in 1927, is part of a series of self portraits that Claude photographed to push against gender norms and transcend beyond what is seen as identity. The subject of the photograph is Claude Cahun themself. They’re wearing what appears to be a clown-like outfit from the makeup and props chosen. The outfit consists of a long sleeved shirt that says “I AM IN TRAINING: DON’T KISS ME” with lips below the text and exaggerated circles located where the nipples would be. Claude is also accompanying this look with wrist and leg warmers that appear to be leather, ballet flats, shorts done over leggings, and a short scarf around their neck. The makeup look also exaggerates another one of their features, their lips and cheeks, with makeup that draws your focus to them. Their hairstyle is short with the front bangs in a curl that makes them almost look like an upside-down heart. Lastly, they are holding onto a circular dumbbell with both their hands, standing straight in front of hung up rugs and curtains behind them. The photograph itself is done on gelatin silver print, featuring itself in a more grayscale monochromatic color scheme, and is roughly 10.5 by 7.6 cm in size. Tragically, the portrait was never featured in any museums until far after Claude’s death in 1954, where it was exhibited on it’s own wall in the Museum of Modern Art of the City of Paris in 1995. It was recently sold in an auction in May of 2021.
As mentioned previously, Autoportrait (variante I’m in training…) is a conversation of self expression and what that means for stereotypical gender norms. Claude in particular chose to highlight certain aspects of femininity in their costume design in the piece. These would be the face makeup, with the overly done rosy cheeks and lipstick, and the circles on the shirt that indicate where the nipples are. In the stereotypical sense, these features are predominantly what are noticed first on women; their face and bosom areas. Their costume also highlights points of masculine stereotypes, with the dumbbell weights they’re holding and even the hair curved in to have a similar appearance to a handlebar mustache (though to some it may look like an upside down heart). The purpose of this is to have the appearance of the subject portrayed in such a performative way, that it isn’t intended to be taken seriously. The Art Story’s website page on Claude Cahun puts it as “the theatrical nature of the strongman series combines contradictory notions of gender to highlight the interesting space of slippage between opposite poles of identity” (“Claude Cahun”). This is leading into the conversation of sexuality and how Claude’s was perceived, with the influence that the early twentieth century was having at the time. Knafo in Claude Cahun: The Third Sex puts it as Claude “conceiving a hybrid cultural identity not easily assimilable within the overdetermined categories of masculine and feminine” (Knafo 38). It’s assumed with this that they’ve created a potential third sex, though orientation (particularly Claude’s) is so ambiguious that it cannot be confirmed nor denied.
During the time of the piece’s origins in 1927, the United States and Europe were going through an emergence of outwardly accepting “nonnormative sexuality” as it’s put in Finding Out: An Introduction to LGBT Studies (Meem, Gibson, & Alexander 69). This was mainly due to the successes and triumphs that the world felt with such events as “the Roaring Twenties,” “The Harlem Renaissance,” and even just loosening attitudes on sexuality in general. Women in particular were being given more power and acceptance through the expansive ideas coming out of events at the time. Not only that, but the effects of the nineteenth century’s “first wave feminism” were bleeding into the newly emerged twentieth century, sparking gender variance and it’s eventual link to homosexuality (as both homosexual desire and gender variance were often seen closely associated in the early twentieth century, according to Transgender History) (Styker 34). Claude’s influence at the time was set around others who also were breaking the gender binary. Many of their friends and colleagues were those experimenting with gender and sexuality at the time. Even their own partner, Moore, was following on the same journey as they both proceeded with their attempt at gender neutrality. Their challenges went on to, though highly controversial, some of the first gender neutral icons of the century.
Queer art has evolved over the past century from something of embarassment to
something of pride. Especially in the wake of acceptance, identities are commonplace as subjects in artworks created nowadays. Claude Cahun was one of the first artists to push the boundaries of gender and portray works that made one question their own self identity. Their influence of the early twentieth century’s sexology and feminism helped to carve the way for Claude’s work to even exist. Though not as well known as other artist, their work to this day still inspires many gender nonconforming and conforming people to be their most authentic selves.
