Claude Cahun - Inverleith House - finished 17th April 2011

I visited Inverleith House for the first time recently. In the heart of the Botanic Gardens it’s a little off the beaten track but it is hands down one of the best galleries I’ve been to in Edinburgh. Not only is it is a beautiful space (all empty crisp white rooms, tranquil as opposed to austere), it also seems to be in very good managerial hands: their current exhibition has everything you could ask for as a gallery goer! On display is a collection of photographic self-portraits by the little-known French writer, performer and artist Claude Cahun (1894-1954). Photography seems (to me at least) seldom represented in Edinburgh - the somehow impenetrable Stills gallery aside - and the exhibition is exciting not only for that fact but also due to its genuine historical significance. Cahun never exhibited her photography during her life time and it is long-posthumously that her works have since come to be re-evaluated in a handful of exhibitions. Its not often you can visit a gallery and feel you are being enlightened to a significant and influential body of work by a partially forgotten artist of clear importance.

Originally named Lucie Shwob, Cahun was born in Nantes in 1894 into a literary environment – her father a prominent publisher, her uncle and great-uncle famous writers. At the age of fifteen, Cahun met Susanne Malherbe, a trainee graphic artist who not only become her step-sister but also her life-long partner. At this early age the pair forged their romantic and artistic partnership; their circumstances and shared vision prompting them to explore and challenge notions of sexuality and female representation, initially through the re-interpretation of famous stories with female protagonists throughout history, from Cinderella to Eve. Cahun changed her name - and often her appearance - to sound sexually ambiguous: an overt challenge to the clichés Cahun and Malherbe sought to invert and play with through their writings, illustrations and performances.

When they moved together to Paris in their early twenties, they inevitably became swiftly immersed in the bohemian, liberalist art world of the time, particularly finding their home in contemporary theatre in which Cahun would regularly perform. The photographs displayed at Inverleith House clearly demonstrate the women’s affiliation to and similarities with the work of the Surrealists and Symbolists; many images experimenting with reflection and multi-exposures. One comparison that springs instantly to mind while observing Cahun’s constant toying with self-representation - but more specifically with gender - is of the famous photographs of Duchamp as his transgender alter-ego Rose Salevy. Not only did Cahun shave her head, she also dressed in a masculine manner that was a direct pre-cursor to the wider changes in women’s fashion in the 1920s and 30s.

However, what is most striking about Cahun’s images is that artistically, she was clearly experimenting with themes and photographical aesthetics that other notable (and interestingly, female), photographers in the latter decades of the twentieth century would go on to explore. For example, the ‘staged’ aspect of some of Cahun’s photographs, where she plays with representations of the self, specifically femininity and all its facades, with varying degrees of theatricality, instantly brings Cindy Sherman to mind. Equally, the illusive and simultaneously haunting and haunted element of some of her work –  images that are faceless or simply depict an arm and hand - are highly evocative of Francesca Woodman.

The images on display were left to the Jersey Museum, the island on which the pair would retreat for the latter half of their lives. It was from here that, in the most fascinating twist of the tale, they would wage their protest against Nazi occupation; a campaign which eventually landed them in jail, destroying Cahun’s delicate health permanently.

My one criticism of the exhibition was ironically brought to light by the fact I had enjoyed it so much I chose to go home and research it in greater depth. The show is very much Cahun-centric but little is mentioned about the part her artistic partner Susanne Malherbe played. Online you can find examples of Malherbe’s skilled graphic drawings and designs for stage sets and costumes during their Parisian days, illustrating her value as an artist in her own right. What also became apparent through further research was the strong element of partnership. Malherbe planned and framed the images alongside Cahun. At times her presence is made; the cast of the photographer’s shadow visible in frame (and so highly orchestrated are the images, there can be no doubt that this was anything other than intentional). Though Cahun was the ‘face’ of their work, it would have been nice to have seen some credit for Malherbe where it was due. I can only conclude that perhaps the curator felt that overtly highlighting the relationship would detract from focus on the images themselves.