Claude Cahun

Unlike other artists – mainly men – who made portraits but never or very rarely exposed their own person to the lens (Man Ray, Hans Bellmer, André Kertész), Claude Cahun was at once the object and the subject of her artistic experiments. This is borne out by the care with which she chose her poses and expressions, the backgrounds she used (fabric, bedspreads, sheets, hangings), and her use of specific props (masks, capes, overgarments, glass balls, etc.) – even if the real focus of the image was still the face. Some of these propositions can be found in the photographs of objects that she began in the mid-1920s and developed throughout the 1930s. The exhibition emphasises the highly innovative quality of these experiments in which she explores questions and visual and symbolic procedures (staging, superposition of photos, photomontage) that continue her speculations on self-metamorphosis.
From: website Jeu de Paume, 2011