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Exist Otherwise: The Life and Works of Claude Cahun
Offering some of Cahun’s writings never before translated into English alongside a wide array of her artworks and those of her contemporaries, this book is a must-have for any fan of this iconic artist, now in paperback.
In the turmoil of the 1920s and ’30s, Claude Cahun challenged gender stereotypes with her powerful photographs, montages, and writings, works that appear to our twenty-first-century eyes as utterly contemporary, or even from the future. She wrote poetry and prose for major French literary magazines, worked in avant-garde theater, and was both comrade of and critical outsider to the Surrealists. Exist Otherwise is the first work in English to the tell the full story of Claude Cahun’s art and life, one that celebrates and makes accessible Cahun’s remarkable vision.
Jennifer L. Shaw embeds Cahun within the exciting social and artistic milieu of Paris between the wars. She examines her relationship with Marcel Moore—Cahun’s stepsister, lover, and life partner—who was a central collaborator helping make some of the most compelling photographs and photomontages of Cahun’s oeuvre, dreamscapes of disassembled portraiture and scenes that simultaneously fascinate and terrify. Shaw follows Cahun into the horrors of World War II and the Nazi occupation of the island of Jersey off the coast of Normandy, and she explores the powerful and dangerous ways Cahun resisted it. Reading through her letters and diaries, Shaw brings Cahun’s ideas and feelings to the foreground, offering an intimate look at how she thought about photography, surrealism, the histories of women artists, and queer culture.
In the turmoil of the 1920s and ’30s, Claude Cahun challenged gender stereotypes with her powerful photographs, montages, and writings, works that appear to our twenty-first-century eyes as utterly contemporary, or even from the future. She wrote poetry and prose for major French literary magazines, worked in avant-garde theater, and was both comrade of and critical outsider to the Surrealists. Exist Otherwise is the first work in English to the tell the full story of Claude Cahun’s art and life, one that celebrates and makes accessible Cahun’s remarkable vision.
Jennifer L. Shaw embeds Cahun within the exciting social and artistic milieu of Paris between the wars. She examines her relationship with Marcel Moore—Cahun’s stepsister, lover, and life partner—who was a central collaborator helping make some of the most compelling photographs and photomontages of Cahun’s oeuvre, dreamscapes of disassembled portraiture and scenes that simultaneously fascinate and terrify. Shaw follows Cahun into the horrors of World War II and the Nazi occupation of the island of Jersey off the coast of Normandy, and she explores the powerful and dangerous ways Cahun resisted it. Reading through her letters and diaries, Shaw brings Cahun’s ideas and feelings to the foreground, offering an intimate look at how she thought about photography, surrealism, the histories of women artists, and queer culture.
256 pages, Hardcover
Published June 15, 2017
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351 people want to read
About the author
Jennifer L. Shaw
6 books12 followersJennifer L. Shaw is Professor of Art History at Sonoma State University.
Here are some reviews of her recent book EXIST OTHERWISE:
‘Claude Cahun may not be particularly well known outside the art world, but this highly readable biography of the 20th-century French writer, artist, and photographer ought to help change this situation. Jennifer L. Shaw has written a fascinating book about a gender-bending lesbian intellectual who challenged ideas of gender and sexuality in both her life and art . . . Filled with reproductions of photographs and detailed descriptions and analyses of her writings, Exist Otherwise is a comprehensive introduction to Claude Cahun’s art and writing. With any luck it will bring readers back to her unique body of work.’ – The Gay and Lesbian Review
‘In this first full biography of the pseudonymous visual artist and writer Claude Cahun, Shaw is intensely responsive to Cahun’s life and work (verbal, visual, political). In the process of examining and commenting on Cahun’s unique life, Shaw travels across time and across surrealism, Dada, a world war, and the anti-fascists and their effect on art and life in Paris, Jersey, and Germany . . . Homosexuality is an important focal point, as are the anti-fascists and the active rebellion of the modern against the traditional. Shaw writes that as an outsider woman, lesbian, and Jew, Cahun “trumpeted her role.” This book deserves a wide readership. Highly recommended.’ – Choice
‘Jennifer Shaw has written the first full biography of Cahun in English . . . The originality of Shaw’s approach lies in her situating Cahun’s work and thought within contemporary Symbolist and Surrealist aesthetic and political positions, while drawing on recent feminist theory, unlike Leperlier, who tends to bypass Cahun’s lesbianism, and unlike some recent scholarly work which, in seeking to integrate Cahun into the corpus of women artists of the late twentieth century, can risk losing sight of her historical and cultural specificity . . . This study is a richly documented and well-balanced account of a major twentieth-century artistic figure, in which Cahun’s life and work are interwoven in such a way that they illuminate each other.’ – H-France Review
‘As a Jewish, gender-nonconforming artist living amid the rise of fascism and widespread anti-Semitism, Cahun’s artwork challenged social norms of the time. The new book Exist Otherwise . . . features her photographs, sculptures, and illustrations along with diary entries and writing clips that have never before been translated in English.’ – The Cut
‘Exist Otherwise is elegantly written and beautifully illustrated with artwork, and includes an appendix with short, translated excerpts of Cahun’s writings . . . in Shaw’s telling, Cahun models how to practice radical art and action during politically fraught times like hers – and our own.’ – Wellesley Review
‘Jennifer Shaw has crafted mounds of archival information – including memoirs, letters, press clippings, rare books, and photographs – into a story of Claude Cahun’s life and works. Exist Otherwise: The Life and Works of Claude Cahun, a highly readable page-turner, nevertheless engages fully with the complexities that make Cahun one of the 20th century’s most intriguing artist–activists and an inspiration to today’s culture makers.’ – Tirza T. Latimer, Chair and Associate Professor, Visual and Critical Studies, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, California
‘Claude Cahun’s writings and artworks tell the story of her own critical self-discovery, and Shaw follows suit, placing the works at the center of her gripping biography of Cahun as a woman artist and lesbian who managed to “exist otherwise” long before transgender and gay rights. In the graceful flow of Shaw’s prose, Cahun’s photographic projects illuminate and amplify her life, from the French provinces to Surrealist Paris to the occupied island of Jersey, where her guerilla anti-Nazi art led to
Here are some reviews of her recent book EXIST OTHERWISE:
‘Claude Cahun may not be particularly well known outside the art world, but this highly readable biography of the 20th-century French writer, artist, and photographer ought to help change this situation. Jennifer L. Shaw has written a fascinating book about a gender-bending lesbian intellectual who challenged ideas of gender and sexuality in both her life and art . . . Filled with reproductions of photographs and detailed descriptions and analyses of her writings, Exist Otherwise is a comprehensive introduction to Claude Cahun’s art and writing. With any luck it will bring readers back to her unique body of work.’ – The Gay and Lesbian Review
‘In this first full biography of the pseudonymous visual artist and writer Claude Cahun, Shaw is intensely responsive to Cahun’s life and work (verbal, visual, political). In the process of examining and commenting on Cahun’s unique life, Shaw travels across time and across surrealism, Dada, a world war, and the anti-fascists and their effect on art and life in Paris, Jersey, and Germany . . . Homosexuality is an important focal point, as are the anti-fascists and the active rebellion of the modern against the traditional. Shaw writes that as an outsider woman, lesbian, and Jew, Cahun “trumpeted her role.” This book deserves a wide readership. Highly recommended.’ – Choice
‘Jennifer Shaw has written the first full biography of Cahun in English . . . The originality of Shaw’s approach lies in her situating Cahun’s work and thought within contemporary Symbolist and Surrealist aesthetic and political positions, while drawing on recent feminist theory, unlike Leperlier, who tends to bypass Cahun’s lesbianism, and unlike some recent scholarly work which, in seeking to integrate Cahun into the corpus of women artists of the late twentieth century, can risk losing sight of her historical and cultural specificity . . . This study is a richly documented and well-balanced account of a major twentieth-century artistic figure, in which Cahun’s life and work are interwoven in such a way that they illuminate each other.’ – H-France Review
‘As a Jewish, gender-nonconforming artist living amid the rise of fascism and widespread anti-Semitism, Cahun’s artwork challenged social norms of the time. The new book Exist Otherwise . . . features her photographs, sculptures, and illustrations along with diary entries and writing clips that have never before been translated in English.’ – The Cut
‘Exist Otherwise is elegantly written and beautifully illustrated with artwork, and includes an appendix with short, translated excerpts of Cahun’s writings . . . in Shaw’s telling, Cahun models how to practice radical art and action during politically fraught times like hers – and our own.’ – Wellesley Review
‘Jennifer Shaw has crafted mounds of archival information – including memoirs, letters, press clippings, rare books, and photographs – into a story of Claude Cahun’s life and works. Exist Otherwise: The Life and Works of Claude Cahun, a highly readable page-turner, nevertheless engages fully with the complexities that make Cahun one of the 20th century’s most intriguing artist–activists and an inspiration to today’s culture makers.’ – Tirza T. Latimer, Chair and Associate Professor, Visual and Critical Studies, California College of the Arts, San Francisco, California
‘Claude Cahun’s writings and artworks tell the story of her own critical self-discovery, and Shaw follows suit, placing the works at the center of her gripping biography of Cahun as a woman artist and lesbian who managed to “exist otherwise” long before transgender and gay rights. In the graceful flow of Shaw’s prose, Cahun’s photographic projects illuminate and amplify her life, from the French provinces to Surrealist Paris to the occupied island of Jersey, where her guerilla anti-Nazi art led to
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Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews
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June 29, 2017October 10, 2022
During the summer I was surfing the web and I ran across some deeply captivating artwork by an artist whose work I had never encountered before. She was born Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob, but she went by the name Claude Cahun. She was born in 1894 and grew up in Nantes, France, but also spent a lot of her childhood summers on the English island of Jersey. Her artwork--a lot of it photos, photo-montages & found-object constructions--was surrealistic in nature and very thought-provoking. In addition to being a visual artist, Cahun was also a gifted writer whose work was widely read and appreciated.
Much of Cahun's artwork was done in collaboration with her stepsister, lover & life partner, Marcel Moore (b. Suzanne Malherbe). Moore took many photos of Cahun wearing masks (sometimes layers of masks) and it was these which first caught my attention. These photos, though of Cahun were often conceived by her, as well. It was as if she were attempting to delve deeper and deeper into her own psyche through these images. Early in her career, Cahun grappled with breaking gender-role expectation--long, long before it became the buzz word it is today. Many of the photos Moore took of Cahun seem, in fact, androgynous, while others clearly portray her in stereotypically male or female roles. It begs the question of what makes us male or female in the first place--nature or cultural norms.
Later Cajun became very political in her views and felt it was her job as an artist to make the viewer question the status quo and even, if need be, to foment social revolution through her work in order to fight for equality. When Cahun and Moore were in their fifties, they fled Paris, where they had been living for years. They bought an old farmhouse on Cahun's childhood refuge, Jersey. They left Paris because it was becoming too anti-semitic (Cahun's father was a Jew). Then, in spite of imminent danger, they spent the last two years of the war resisting the German soldiers that overtook the island by creating subversive artwork and messages primarily designed to make the regular German soldiers question their involvement in the war. The two women ended up imprisoned and sentenced to death for their 'crimes'. Due to a series of events, they escaped death, but because of their incarceration and ensuing suicide attempts, Cahun's health suffered greatly and, I believe, hastened her death at 60.
Throughout her life, Cahun sought to compel those looking upon her work to think, to ask questions, to react and, ultimately, to act upon the conclusions they drew from these observations. She was friends and sometimes verbal sparring partners with many important avant-garde artists, writers & philosophers of the day. This book is the first in English to explore her life and work. Though, because of the depth of the subject matter, it was sometimes dense reading, it was very well researched and quite enlightening. Most importantly, it was beautifully illustrated with many examples of both Cajun's and Moore's work, as well as with many personal photos of them and those surrounding them. This book is definitely well worth the effort.
Much of Cahun's artwork was done in collaboration with her stepsister, lover & life partner, Marcel Moore (b. Suzanne Malherbe). Moore took many photos of Cahun wearing masks (sometimes layers of masks) and it was these which first caught my attention. These photos, though of Cahun were often conceived by her, as well. It was as if she were attempting to delve deeper and deeper into her own psyche through these images. Early in her career, Cahun grappled with breaking gender-role expectation--long, long before it became the buzz word it is today. Many of the photos Moore took of Cahun seem, in fact, androgynous, while others clearly portray her in stereotypically male or female roles. It begs the question of what makes us male or female in the first place--nature or cultural norms.
Later Cajun became very political in her views and felt it was her job as an artist to make the viewer question the status quo and even, if need be, to foment social revolution through her work in order to fight for equality. When Cahun and Moore were in their fifties, they fled Paris, where they had been living for years. They bought an old farmhouse on Cahun's childhood refuge, Jersey. They left Paris because it was becoming too anti-semitic (Cahun's father was a Jew). Then, in spite of imminent danger, they spent the last two years of the war resisting the German soldiers that overtook the island by creating subversive artwork and messages primarily designed to make the regular German soldiers question their involvement in the war. The two women ended up imprisoned and sentenced to death for their 'crimes'. Due to a series of events, they escaped death, but because of their incarceration and ensuing suicide attempts, Cahun's health suffered greatly and, I believe, hastened her death at 60.
Throughout her life, Cahun sought to compel those looking upon her work to think, to ask questions, to react and, ultimately, to act upon the conclusions they drew from these observations. She was friends and sometimes verbal sparring partners with many important avant-garde artists, writers & philosophers of the day. This book is the first in English to explore her life and work. Though, because of the depth of the subject matter, it was sometimes dense reading, it was very well researched and quite enlightening. Most importantly, it was beautifully illustrated with many examples of both Cajun's and Moore's work, as well as with many personal photos of them and those surrounding them. This book is definitely well worth the effort.
October 15, 2019
Actually more like 3.5. Really good writing, but I have some deep questions that are not answered by the text.
November 3, 2019
"..human beings can be destroyed from the outside, they can be built up from the inside..."
August 12, 2021
Extraordinary life.
August 4, 2023
claude cahun you will always be famous
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April 27, 2018779.0922 C132s 2017
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7 reviews