Claude Cahun 1894 - 1954.
I must say that I thoroughly enjoyed reading the exhibition catalogue for this work more than the exhibition itself. In the gallery I found it hard to relate Gillian Wearing's work to that of Claude Cahun. Although it was clear that Wearing had made a number of pieces in response to Cahun's B&W images, the scale between the two was completely off. Wearing works in large format and the images are impressive and enjoyable to analyse; but juxtaposed against Cahun's tiny prints I found reading them together quite hard. In fact some of the works in the exhibition were not even placed together. It was not until I returned home and slowly went through the catalogue, reading the text and comparing the images (printed at a similar scale) that I was able to appreciate the intent of the exhibition. I was also unfamiliar with Cahun's work so it was a joy to discover her surrealist and subversive images and to learn about her lifelong struggles; first against misogynistic surrealist artists and critics who managed to expunge her from the history of Surrealism and then her efforts to destabilise the Nazi regime in Jersey through her art practise - a dangerous stance that put Cahun and her same-sex partner both in jail for a period of time. Cahun experiments with androgyny in her work and frequently changes her hairstyle or shaves it off and adopts all manner of costume to explore what it is to be gendered by society.
As a contemporary artist it is well known that Wearing plays with the idea around the construction of social society and the rules that are placed on gendered bodies. Wearing employs masks to play with the notion of gender, adopting the roles of family members of both sexes. Over time Wearing included famous photographers and other groupings in her constructions and the masks and body suits became more elaborate - although Wearing always takes care to ensure that the eye holes around the masks are visible. These pieces were included in the gallery as well as Wearing's new work made in response to Cahun's. I found the exhibition a bit confusing to read in this respect; but strangely in the catalogue the choices work better for me. I think the text helps to ground the work made for the exhibition and is a good reference for anyone undertaking gender as a theme in their photography studies.
On reflection the large scale of Wearing's prints and Cahun's endearing, tiny, absorbing images contain an interesting contrast; that of the ability and relative freedom of Wearing as a modern day woman to make large art pieces and Cahun who often made her work at home or in her garden. This of course is not a true representation as, technological developments aside, Cahun was fairly well known in the Parisian art scene; not only as a visual artist but as a writer too. But there is an element to be read in the juxtaposition of the subtle and not so subtle oppression that women had and continue to face in a patriarchal society that continues to assume and enforce gender stereotypes.
