Claude Cahun: Beneath This Mask

Whilst on placement, over lunch I visited Exeter Phoenix Art Gallery. The exhibition which was on was French photographer Claude Cahun (1894–1954) who achieved posthumous fame for her elusive self-portraits in which she assumed multiple personae. Born Lucy Schwob, she adopted the pseudonym in 1917 to free herself from the narrow confines of gender.

 At the beginning of her career she was aligned to the Surrealist movement and was friends with André Breton; however she distanced herself both politically and physically after fleeing France on the eve of Nazi occupation. Cahun settled in Jersey where she embarked upon her defining photographic series, in which the subversion of traditional portraiture and the constructed nature of identity and gender are pressing concerns. In these now famous images, Cahun anticipated the performative work of contemporary artists such as Cindy Sherman.

It was interesting to see photographs decades ahead of its time, were Claude Cahun's work toys which perceived gender roles and identity.