Liberated: The Radical Art and Life of Claude Cahun, by Kaz Rowe

[rachelmanija]

That amazing cover is an extremely accurate drawing of an actual photograph which is reproduced in the book, of a performance piece by Claude Cahun.

Liberated is a graphic novel telling the true story of Claude Cahun, a French Jewish writer and artist born in 1894. Cahun, along with their lover, the photographer and artist Marcel Moore, was active in the Parisian surrealist movement. Later, they resisted the Nazis via a stealth propaganda campaign aimed at occupying Nazi soldiers. They created pamphlets and fliers, and smuggled them into the soldiers' cigarette packs and even pockets! And they did all this while Cahun was chronically ill. Eventually, they were ratted out, arrested, tried, and sentenced to death, but the war ended before the sentence was carried out.

Assigned female at birth, Cahun's life and art interrogated gender, persona, and identity, writing, Masculine? Feminine? It depends on the situation. Neuter is the only gender that always suits me. Marcel Moore was also assigned female at birth, but I'm not sure how Moore identified in terms of gender, or whether the name Marcel Moore was a preferred name or a pseudonym/artist's persona. I think the graphic novel probably doesn't pin this down on purpose, and my guess is that either it wasn't clear at this remove, or it seemed more true to Moore to leave it ambiguous/fluid.

The two of them met at school, fell in love, and traveled Europe together. And just when it started getting socially dicey for them to stay together, social cover fell into their lap when - I am not making this up - Moore's mother married Cahun's father! When they moved to the island of Jersey to escape the Nazis (this only worked for so long) they represented themselves as sisters living together.

The graphic novel is largely told in Cahun's words, with lovely graphic art plus a few of Cahun and Moore's own photographs. It's a quick, moving, inspiring, thought-provoking read, more relevant now than ever.

Comments

[sartorias]

I've heard of Moore when researching artists of the early 20th. Sounds fascinating!

[rachelmanija]

I'd never heard of either of them before. I think you'd enjoy this.

[sartorias]

going on the list...

[rydra_wong]

I HAVE JUST THE ICON FOR THIS

Eventually, they were ratted out, arrested, and tried, and sentenced to death, but the war ended before the sentence was carried out.

In case you've not seen it, here's Cahun's self-portrait on their release, holding a Nazi eagle badge between their teeth like a cat carrying a dead bird:

https://www.npg.org.uk/assets/images/assets/blog/blog264_badge.jpg

[rachelmanija]

That is amaaazing.

And ha! I should have known you were already very aware.

[rydra_wong]

I highly rec doing a Google image search on their work to see the photos that didn't make it into the book, because their work is SO fantastic. Definitely a precursor of what people like Cindy Sherman would do later with self-representation, but with its own distinct flavour.

[rachelmanija]

I think I need an icon of that.

Did someone say icon?

[sheliak]

[philomytha]

Oh, that's a fantastic image!

[em_h]

OMG Claude Cahun I LOVE THEM. I discovered Cahun when there was an exhibit in London in the 1990s and I have loved them ever since.

I am trying to cut down on book ordering but I have to have this book.

[rachelmanija]

You will love it.

[alias_sqbr]

I had no idea and this is amazing!

[sabotabby]

OMG that's cool. Maybe I need to buy it for my class, who occasionally get excited when I talk about Claude and Marcel.

[plinythemammaler]

I knew a little bit about Claude Cahun but I am SO HAPPY to learn more