Monday 9 January 2012

split of identity

                                                                           Claude Cahun - Que Me Veux-Tu?

"In Que Me Veux-Tu? a deep personal tension is made visible in a profoundly revealing portrait. An androgynous two-headed creature becomes a metaphor for a splitting of identity. In her writings she eloquently expressed her artistic and philosophical objectives: "Divide myself in order to conquer, multiply myself in order to assert myself."
This, her most revealing self-portrait, shows a sinister 'demonic' head whispering into the ear of its angelic, naively curious, twin. Which of them is speaking the title - "What do you want from me?" - is unclear. But perhaps they both are, and it is the viewer, society even, who is being addressed. For she has certainly received little affirmation about who she is from a society who didn't recognise her 'kind' as sane or healthy. 
This image represents an inner conflict resulting from a profound lack of any external identity cues - which we take for granted. In her art Cahun is creating herself. Becoming human. Figuring things out for herself."

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