Claude Cahun

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Claude Cahun (born October 25, 1894 in Nantes , France with the real name Lucy Renée Schwob; † December 8, 1954 in Saint Helier , Jersey ) was a writer and photographer who, together with her partner Suzanne Malherbe (born July 19, 1892 in Nantes; † 1972 in Jersey) maintained an artist salon in Paris in the 1920s and 1930s. Her work is assigned to surrealism .

As the daughter of the well-to-do, Jewish intellectual family Schwob, Claude Cahun enjoyed a good education, and she was able to publish texts in magazines and work as an artist at an early age. Together with her stepsister and partner Suzanne Malherbe, she ran an artist salon in Paris for 15 years. She photographed, made collages , played in surrealist plays, wrote and was among the surrealists around André Breton . In her writings and by means of her photographic work, she turned against fascism as a communist and fought for freedom of thought and the emancipation of the individual all her life. From 1937, Claude Cahun and Suzanne Malherbe fled the Nazis to the Channel Island of Jersey . After the Wehrmacht occupied Jersey , they continued to be involved in the anti-fascist resistance and were ultimately sentenced to death in 1944 . In 1945 they were both pardoned, but during their 10-month imprisonment the Gestapo ransacked their country house and destroyed a large part of their work.

biography

Lucy Schwob

Lucy Renée Mathilde Schwob was born in Nantes on October 25, 1894 . Since her mother Victorine Courbebaisse was admitted to a psychiatric clinic shortly afterwards, Lucy lived most of the time with her grandmother Mathilde Schwob. The Schwob family was a family of intellectuals with a Jewish background, and Mathilde Schwob's sons were socially and culturally involved: Lucy's father Maurice Schwob (1859–1928) was the editor of the Phare de la Loire , a major regional magazine, and published various papers on economics and politics. Lucy's uncle Marcel Schwob (1867–1905) co-founded the magazine Mercure de France and one of the key figures in literary symbolism in France. In 1907 Lucy was sent to the Parson's Mead School in Surrey (England) for two school years due to the anti-Semitic mood caused by the revision of the Dreyfus Trial , then she returned to France to the Lyceum in Nantes. Around 1909, her father met his second wife, Marie Eugénie Malherbe. Their daughter Suzanne Malherbe and Lucy began an exchange of letters.

Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore

From 1920 onwards, Lucy Schwob finally called herself Claude Cahun. She used this name (an adoration of her great-uncle David Léon Cahun ) for her texts in the Phare de la Loire , Mercure de France and La Gerbe since 1918 . The first publication, Vues et Vision in 1914 in the Mercure de France , she signed with Claude Courlis, in La Gerbe she also appeared as Daniel Douglas until 1920. In her autobiography Disavowals or canceled confessions , she describes herself as neither clearly man nor woman, but Neuter :

"Masculine? Feminine? It depends on the situation. Neuter is the only gender that always suits me "

- Claude Cahun : Disavowals or canceled confessions; Page 151

The chosen name "Claude" is used both as a male and female name. She was probably inspired to play with the name by Suzanne, who had established her pseudonym Marcel Moore early on (1913). Suzanne Malherbe was a graphic designer and artist. She drew for fashion magazines, portrayed her friends and illustrated Cahun's books.

In technical literature today, Suzanne Malherbe is primarily listed under her maiden name, not under her pseudonym Marcel Moore, while Lucy Schwob is consistently referred to as Claude Cahun.

Suzanne, Paris, le Surrealisme

In 1917, Claude Cahun and Suzanne Malherbe stayed in an apartment above the Phare de la Loire in Nantes. They spent increasing amounts of time in Paris, where Claude Cahun studied philosophy and philology at the Sorbonne , and rented an apartment there in the Rue de Grenelle in 1920 until they finally set up their studio in the Rue Notre-Dames-des-Champs on Montparnasse in 1922 , which became a popular meeting place. In 1924/1925 she contributed to the writing of the first homosexual magazine in France, Inversions .

Self portrait
Claude Cahun
photography
Jersey Heritage Collection

Link to the picture
(please note copyrights )

In addition to writing, Claude Cahun intensified her photographic activities. Suzanne Malherbe assisted her. For example, following Cahun's suggestions, photomontages for the 240-page, autobiographical essay Aveux non avenus , which was published in 1930 by Editions de Carrefour, Paris, after 10 years of work. In 1929 Claude Cahun took part as a make-up and costume designer and as an actress in Pierre Albert-Birot's Théâtre de recherches dramatique: Le Plateau , a short-term surrealist ensemble that staged its own experimental pieces. After she had shaved her head again, Cahun's only published self-portrait was created.

In 1932, Claude Cahun made a brief excursion to the Association des Écrivains et Artistes Révolutionnaires (the French section of the International Association of Revolutionary Writers , initiated by the Comintern ), a group of communist artists and writers who u. a. André Breton was a member. When the Surrealists and Breton were excluded from the union in 1933, Cahun also resigned and published Les Paris sont ouverts (English: the bets are open), a pamphlet in which they discussed the cultural policy of the Comintern in general and the Louis Aragons in general Special criticized. In search of other, artistic forms of resistance against the growing fascism on the one hand and against internal French politics on the other hand [ Léon Blum's popular front policy was felt to be too nationalistic and characterized by traditional bourgeois morality.], She became a founding member of the in 1935 with Breton, Georges Bataille and others Association Contre-Attaque , an alliance of left-wing intellectuals who, until the group's dissolution in 1936, expressed themselves in an extremely radical and revolutionary way in their pamphlets and manifestos.

In 1937, Claude Cahun bought the La Rocquaise estate on the Channel Island of Jersey .

La Rocquaise, la Resistance

Badge on La Rocquaise country house

La Rocquaise is located on St. Brelade's Bay, near the Church of St. Brelade , Jersey. Claude Cahun has been spending annual vacations at St. Brelade's Bay Hotel since 1915, and some photographs from that period of flotsam assemblages on the sand of St. Brelade Beach have been preserved.

Cahun and Malherbe kept in touch with friends in Paris. Cahun became a member of the Fédération Internationale de l'Art Indépendant (1938), whose manifesto corresponded to the positions outlined in Les Paris sont ouverts .

Grave of Lucy Schwob and Suzanne Malherbe in the graveyard of St. Brelade's Church, Jersey

On July 1, 1940, the Germans invaded Jersey (see World War II ). From day one, Suzanne Malherbe and Claude Cahun wrote leaflets, designed posters and photomontages, and prepared resistance actions. They used Suzanne Malherbe's very good knowledge of German to write leaflets calling for desertions. As in Paris, they were directed not only against the German soldiers, but also against the "cowardly bureaucrats" (from a leaflet) in their own country. They signed the leaflets typed en masse on a typewriter . B. with "The soldiers without names", they attached to police cars and, since the church garden of St. Brelade was used as a military cemetery during the occupation, to the cars of the Germans that were parked there during the funerals. At the church they put up a poster that read, "Jesus is great, but Hitler is greater. Jesus died for people, but people die for Hitler." (quoted from Leperlier in [1]). The leaflet messages were fictitious and effectively unsettled the German occupation.

In July 1944 both were arrested by the Gestapo , sentenced to death in November 1944 for dismantling troops, pardoned in February 1945 and released from prison in May 1945 after Jersey was liberated. During the ten-month detention, the Gestapo searched La Rocquaise several times and ransacked the photo archives and the library. Many negatives and photographs were destroyed.

After the war, Claude Cahun took more self-portraits and began an autobiography. The women planned to return to Paris, but because of the poor health of Claude Cahun, it never came back. She died in St. Helier Hospital in 1954. Suzanne Malherbe sold La Rocquaise and lived in Jersey until her death in 1972.

Work and reception

Cahun as a writer

Claude Cahun published many articles in various French magazines as well as the 3 books listed below. Manuscript fragments are available from other books. She is also the author and signatory of various appeals, treatises and pamphlets from the Surrealists' environment.

Vues et Visions (German: views and visions). First published in 1914 in the Mercure de France, published in 1919 as a 100-page booklet with illustrations by Suzanne Malherbe by Éditions Georges Cres, dedicated to Marcel Moore. Each chapter consists of two short paragraphs, two (opposing) variants of a mind game, one set in Le Croisic (Brittany), the other in Rome, Athens, Paris ..., arranged left and right on the double pages, framed by two interlocking ones , partly ornamental, partly figurative graphics by Suzanne Malherbe, which also vary the subject of the chapter.

Aveux non avenus (German: void confessions) - Editions du Carrefour (1930) - autobiographical work, 1919–1928, foreword by Pierre Mac Orlan, approx. 240 pages, poems, notes, stories, conversations, aphorisms, photomontages in collaboration with Suzanne Malherbe.

Le Cœur de Pic (1937) volume of poems by Lise Deharme , 32 children's poems illustrated with 20 photographs by Claude Cahun. Claude Cahun made photographic tableaux for this, i.e. scenes and installations with figures, objects and natural materials.

Cahun as a photographer

She published only one of the self-portraits that she created; others were included in photomontages, collages and photographic tableaux. After her photographic work was initially forgotten after her death, it is emphasized today that Claude Cahun was far ahead of her time with regard to the techniques used and due to the emancipated positions represented (e.g. her feminist views).

Cahun in fiction

Publications

  • Vues et Visions (pseudonym Claude Courlis), Mercure de France, No. 406, May 16, 1914
  • La 'Salomé' d'Oscar Wilde. Le procés Billing et les 47000 pervertis du Livre noir , Mercure de France, no.481 , 1 July 1918
  • Le poteau frontière (pseudonym Daniel Douglas), La Gerbe, no.3 , December 1918
  • Au plus beau des ans (pseudonym Daniel Douglas), La Gerbe, no.3, December 1918
  • Cigarettes (pseudonym Daniel Douglas), La Gerbe, No. 3, December 1918
  • Aux Amis des livres , La Gerbe, No. 5, February 1919
  • La Sorbonne en fête (pseudonym Daniel Douglas), La Gerbe, no.5, February 1919
  • La possession du Monde, par Georges Duhamel , La Gerbe, no.7, April 1919
  • Les Gerbes (pseudonym Daniel Douglas), La Gerbe, No. 7, April 1919
  • L'amour aveugle (pseudonym Daniel Douglas), La Gerbe, no.12, September 1919
  • La machine magique (pseudonym Daniel Douglas), La Gerbe, No. 12, September 1919
  • Mathilde Alanic. Les roses refleurissent , Le Phare de la Loire, June 29, 1919
  • Le théâtre de mademoiselle, par Mathias Morhardt , Le Phare de la Loire, July 20, 1919
  • Vues et Visions , with illustrations by Marcel Moore, Paris: Georges Crès & Cie, 1919
  • Paraboles (pseudonym Daniel Douglas), La Gerbe, no.17, February 1920
  • Une conférence de Georges Duhamel (pseudonym Daniel Douglas), La Gerbe, no.19, April 1920
  • Marcel Schwob , La Gerbe, no.20, May 1920
  • Héroïnes: 'Eve la trop crédule', 'Dalila, femme entre les femmes', 'La Sadique Judith', 'Hélène la rebelle', 'Sapho l'incomprise', 'Marguerite, sœur incestueuse', 'Salomé la skeptique' , Mercure de France, No. 639, February 1, 1925
  • Héroïnes: 'Sophie la symboliste', 'la Belle' , Le Journal littéraire, no.45, February 28, 1925
  • Méditation de Mademoiselle Lucie Schwob , Philosophies , No. 5/6, March 1925
  • Récits de rêve , in the special edition Les rêves, Le Disque vert, 3rd year, vol. 4, no.2, 1925
  • Carnaval en chambre , La Ligne de coeur, issue 4, March 1926
  • Ephémérides , Mercure de France, no.685, January 1, 1927
  • Au Diable , Le Plateau, No. 2, May – June 1929
  • Ellis, Havelock: La Femme dans la société - I. L'Hygiene sociale , Social Psychological Studies, translated by Lucy Schwob, Mercure de France, 1929
  • Aveux non avenus , illustrated with photomontages by Moore based on the author's ideas, Paris: Editions du Carrefour, May 30, 1930
  • Frontière humaine , anamorphic self-portrait, Bifur, no.5, April 1930
  • Protestez ( AEAR ), Feuille rouge, No. 2, March 1933
  • Contre le fascisme mais aussi contre l'mpérialisme francais (AEAR), Feuille rouge, no.4 , May 1933
  • Les Paris sont ouvert , Paris: José Corti, May 1934
  • Union de lutte des intellectuels révolutionnaires, Contre-Attaque , 7 October 1935
  • Prenez garde aux objets domestique , in the special edition L'Objet, Cahiers d'Art I-II, 1936
  • Sous le feu des canons francais ... et alliés , Contre-Attaque, March 1936
  • Dissolution de Contre-Attaque , L'Œuvre, March 24, 1936
  • Exposition surréaliste d'objets , exhibition at Galerie Charles Ratton, Paris, 22. – 29. May 1936, listed in the catalog: Claude Cahun Un air de famille and Souris valseuses
  • Il n'y a pas de liberté pour les ennemis de la liberté , July 20, 1936
  • Deharme, Lise: Le Cœur de Pic , 32 children's poems, illustrated with 20 photographs by Claude Cahun (two other photographic works on the dust jacket), Paris: José Cortis, 1937
  • Adhésion à la Fédération Internationale de l'Art Révolutionnaire Indépendant , Clé, no.1 , January 1939
  • À bas les lettres de cachets! À bas la terreur grise! (FIARI), June 1939

See also

literature

  • Heike Ander, Dirk Snauwaert (Ed.): Claude Cahun 1894–1954. Pictures . Schirmer / Mosel, Munich 1997. - Catalog for the exhibition Claude Cahun - Self-portrayals in the Kunstverein Munich (with images of almost all photographic works).
  • Shelley Rice: Inverted Odysseys. Claude Cahun, Maya Deren, and Cindy Sherman . The MIT Press, Cambridge (Mass.), London 1999. - Catalog for the Inverted Odysseys exhibition at New York University Gray Art Gallery and at the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami.
  • Rosalind E. Krauss : Bachelors, The MIT Press, Cambridge (Mass.), London 1999.
  • François Leperlier (Ed.): Claude Cahun Écrits . Éditions Jean-Michel Place, Paris 2002. - Collected texts (in French), including signed appeals and unpublished works. With an extensive bibliography.
  • Kristine von Oehsen: 'Claude Cahun' - Published / Unpublished; The Textual Identities of Lucy Schwob - 1914-1944 ; Doctoral Thesis, University of East Anglia, 2003.
  • Stephan Moebius : Contre-Attaque. A political initiative by French intellectuals in the 1930s . In: Sozial.Geschichte , Vol. 18 (2003), pp. 85-100.
  • Laura Bailey: Beyond Representation. Claude Cahun's Monstrous Mischief-Making . In: History of Photography , Vol. 29 (2005), pp. 135-148.
  • Gene Doy: Claude Cahun. A Sensual Politics of Photography . IB Tauris, London 2006. ISBN 1-8451-1550-3 .
  • Juan Vicente Aliaga, François Leperlier (Ed.): Claude Cahun . Hazan, Paris 2011. ISBN 978-2-7541-0537-8 . - Catalog for the exhibition of the same name in Jeu de Paume (Paris), in La Virreina Center de la Image (Barcelona) and in The Art Institute of Chicago 2011/2012.
  • Andrea Stahl: Articulated Phenomenality. The body in the texts and photographs of Claude Cahun . Königshaus & Neumann, Würzburg 2012. ISBN 978-3-8260-4950-7 .
  • Jennifer L. Shaw: Reading Claude Cahun's Disavowals . Ashgate, Farnham 2014. ISBN 978-1-4094-0787-4 .
  • Jennifer L. Shaw: Exist Otherwise. The Life and Works of Claude Cahun . Reaction Books, London, England 2017, ISBN 978-1-780237282 .

Web links

Commons : Claude Cahun  - Collection of Images, Videos and Audio Files

Individual evidence

  1. Ina Schabert (2012): Sluts have short hair. For the symbolism of cut curls. In: Rebellious, desperate, infamous. the bad girl as an aesthetic figure , edited by Renate Möhrmann and Nadja Urbani (collaboration). Bielefeld: Aisthesis, 2012, ISBN 978-3-89528-875-3 , table of contents , pp. 155–170, section “Bald and cool and cheerful”, pp. 167–170.