✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

You have reached the limit of free articles.


To enjoy unlimited access to Culture Whisper sign up for FREE.
Find out more about Culture Whisper

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy

Each week, we send newsletters and communication featuring articles, our latest tickets invitations, and exclusive offers.

Occasional information about discounts, special offers and promotions.


OR
LOG IN

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

Thanks for signing up to Culture Whisper.
Please check your inbox for a confirmation email and click the link to verify your account.



EXPLORE CULTURE WHISPER
✕ ✕
Turning tips into memories
Login
Signup

Please fix the following input errors:

  • dummy
Forgot your username or password?
Don't have an account? Sign Up

OR
  • LOG IN WITH FACEBOOK

If you click «Log in with Facebook» and are not a Culture Whisper user, you agree to our Terms & Conditions and to our Privacy Policy, which includes our Cookie Use

Support Us Login
  • Home
  • Going Out
    • Things to do
    • Food & Drink
    • Theatre
    • Visual Arts
    • Cinema
    • Kids
    • Festival
    • Gigs
    • Dance
    • Classical Music
    • Opera
    • Immersive
    • Talks
  • Staying In
    • TV
    • Books
    • Cook
    • Podcast
    • Design
    • Netflix
  • Life & Style
    • Beauty
    • Fashion
    • Gifting
    • Wellbeing
    • Lifestyle
    • Shopping
    • Jewellery
  • Explore
  • Shopping
  • CW SHOPS
  • Support Us
  • Get Started
  • Tickets
  • CW SHOPS
Get the Best of London Life, Culture and Style
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
Visual Arts

Behind the Mask, Another Mask: Gillian Wearing and Claude Cahun, National Portrait Gallery

09 Mar 17 – 29 May 17, Daily 10.00 – 18.00 Thursdays and Fridays until 21.00

Dress to transgress: conceptual Surrealist Claude Cahun paired with contemporary artist Gillian Wearing at the National Portrait Gallery

By CW Contributor on 8/3/2017

3 CW readers are interested
'Don't Kiss Me' Claude Cahun, 1927 Courtesy of Jersey Heritage Collections
'Don't Kiss Me' Claude Cahun, 1927 Courtesy of Jersey Heritage Collections
Behind the Mask, Another Mask: Gillian Wearing and Claude Cahun, National Portrait Gallery Behind the Mask, Another Mask: Gillian Wearing and Claude Cahun, National Portrait Gallery Ella Cory-Wright
'Under this mask, another mask. I will never finish removing all these faces.' So said Claude Cahun, the French Surrealist artist and photographer, who slipped from one gender to another long before Simone de Beauvoir or Judith Butler put pens to paper, or David Bowie got his mother in a whirl. Her identity was a performance, a series of masks. 'Masculine? Feminine? It depends on the situation.'


The work of this extraordinary artist is the subject of a new National Portrait Gallery exhibition, Behind the Mask, Another Mask. Cahun's work is presented alongside that of conceptual YBA photographer and Turner Prize-winner, Gillian Wearing; both explore the tangled landscapes of identity.


Born Lucy Schwob into a well-known Jewish intellectual family in Nantes, western France, Cahun changed her name – 'neuter is the only gender that always suits me', she explained – and began dressing androgynously. Along with her lover, artist Suzanne Malherbe, Cahun became closely associated with the Surrealists, painting her shaven head pink and gold and swanning around Parisian cafés. Man Ray adored her. André Breton called her 'one of the most curious spirits of our time'.


Together with Marlherbe, who had changed her own name to Marcel Moore, Cahun made photographs in which she dressed in androgynous disguise. In her most famous image, Self Portrait, we see her dressed as a strongman with kiss-curls, dumb-bells, black lipstick and lovehearts on her cheeks and thighs. Her leotard, complete with nipples and lips, reads: “I AM IN TRAINING DON’T KISS ME”. She dresses to transgress; this image is made to confound.


In 1937 the couple moved from Paris to the island of Jersey, which three years later was occupied by German troops. Cahun and Moore risked death by handing out resistance pamphlets, and they were eventually arrested. They were imprisoned, under sentence of death. With the liberation of the island in 1945, they were set free – only to find that their home had been ransacked and much of their work destroyed.


In other photographs on show at the NPG, a middle-aged Cahun clutches Nazi insignia between her teeth, on the day she was released from prison. Latterly, we see her bald, painted, a dandy, an aviator, a doll, a gentleman. There is no end to her performance.


These minute black and white photographs are placed alongside large-scale work by Gillian Wearing, who also photographs herself in various guises – including as Cahun. 'We were born in different times, we have different concerns, and we come from different backgrounds. She didn’t know me, yet I know her,' Wearing says.


What Behind the Mask, Another Mask: Gillian Wearing and Claude Cahun, National Portrait Gallery
Where National Portrait Gallery, St Martin's Place, London, WC2H 0HE | MAP
Nearest tube Charing Cross (underground)
When 09 Mar 17 – 29 May 17, Daily 10.00 – 18.00 Thursdays and Fridays until 21.00
Price £12 Full Price, £10 Concession
Website Click here for more information



Most popular

Things to do in London this weekend: 17–19 March
Things to do in London this weekend: 17–19 March
Best art exhibitions in London. Photo: Thin Air at the Beams
Top exhibitions on now in London
Irene Maiorino and Alba Rohrwacher in My Brilliant Friend season 4, HBO/Sky Atlantic (Photo: HBO)
My Brilliant Friend, season 4, Sky Atlantic: first-look photo, release date, plot, cast

Editor's Picks

Yayoi Kusama, Untitled (1953). Courtesy Sotheby’s.
Small but mighty: stunning exhibitions openings off the beaten track this week
Things to do in London for December
Things to do in London for December
Andy Warhol, Tate Modern, Aubrey Beardsley, Tate Britain, Gauguin, National Portrait Gallery
The best art exhibitions in London this March
Things to do in London this weekend: 17–19 March
Things to do in London this weekend: 17–19 March
Maria Lassnig, Zwei nebeneinander / Doppelfiguration (Two side by side / Double-Figuration)
March art highlights: 6 shows to see
Video stills from multi-channel film installation, work in progress, 2015-2016 Courtesy of the artist, Jack Shainman Gallery, New York, and Carlier Gebauer, Berlin.
Richard Mosse, Barbican Curve Gallery

A little more

Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).

We recommend nearby

  • The Alchemist, Covent Garden

    Renowned for its molecular mixology, placing theatre and immersive experiences at its core, The Alchemist opens its second London branch in Covent Garden

    Read more...
    Map
  • Coco Ichibanya

    The first European branch of Japan's biggest curry house chain dishes out Japanese curries with adventurous toppings and plenty of options to customise your meal.

    Read more...
    Book Map
  • Terroirs

    The sort of wine bar/restaurant you never want to leave, this place has two separate floors depending on whether you fancy something bustling or more chilled. The French menu features both small plates and charcuterie alongside plats du jour that might include gilt head bream, monk’s beard, broad beans and rouille.

    Book Map
3

Art

Contenporary Art

Feminism

Gender

NPG

National Portrait Gallery

We love

You might like

  • Yayoi Kusama, Captive Doll, image courtesy of UG Gallery

    Traumata: Bourgeois/Kusama, Sotheby’s S|2 Gallery ★★★★★

  • Nan Goldin, Self-Portrait in Kimono with Brian, NYC 1983, National Museum

    Terrains of the Body review ★★★★★

  •  Fog in Toronto © Photo: Jill Krauskopf Fujiko Nakaya

    We review Tate Live Exhibition: Ten Days Six Nights

  • Patti Smith, Vanessa Bell’sBed, 2003, Gelatin silver print, edition of 10, 25.4 × 20.32 cm © Patti Smith. Courtesy the artist and Robert Miller Gallery

    Legacy: Photographs by Vanessa Bell and Patti Smith

  • Dreifaches Selbtsporträt / New Self (Triple Self-Portrait / New Self), 1972 © Maria Lassnig Foundation

    Maria Lassnig, Hauser & Wirth

  • Rachel Whiteread, Line-up, 2007-8

    Review, Rachel Whiteread exhibition, Tate Britain ★★★★★



  • The Culture Whisper team
  • Support Us
  • Tickets
  • Contact us
  • Press
  • FAQ
  • Privacy
  • Terms and conditions
  • Cookies
  • Discover
  • Venues
  • Restaurants
  • Stations
  • Boroughs
Sign up to CW’s newsletter
By entering my email I agree to the CultureWhisper Privacy Policy (we won`t share data & you can unsubscribe anytime).
×