Published by Siglio. Introduction by Pierre Mac Orlan. Translation by Susan de Muth. Text by Lauren Elkin, Amelia Groom. Photomontages by Claude Cahun, Marcel Moore.
First published in 1930 by anti-fascist, avant-garde publisher Carrefour in Paris as Aveux non Avenus, Cancelled Confessions (or Disavowals) is Claude Cahun's wildly radical answer to an invitation to write a memoir. It shatters the very premise of the memoir—the singularity of identity—into sharp and prismatic fragments that she reassembles into an ever-mutating inquiry into "self" and the many masks it wears. Using a multitude of forms (fables, jokes, aphorisms, letters, dialogues, hymns, pronouncements, prophecies, etc.), Cahun's admixture of art and life interrogates, meditates and muses on sex, gender, love, fear and numerous other of her preoccupations. Long unavailable and obsessed over, Cancelled Confessions (or Disavowals) was originally published in English by MIT in 2008. The original (and only) English translation returns in a new, revised and redesigned edition, illustrated by large, sumptuous reproductions of the photocollages made in collaboration by Cahun and her partner, Marcel Moore. It also features the original introduction by Pierre Mac Orlan, as well as new essays by Lauren Elkin, Amelia Groom and the translator Susan de Muth. Cancelled Confessions (or Disavowals) is a tour-de-force act of resistance; it provokes the reader to enter the capacious, subversive, playful and deeply imaginative space constructed by Cahun in her defiance of all categorization, in her repudiation of a delimited, censured world. Claude Cahun (1894–1954) was a surrealist photographer, artist and writer born in Nantes, France. Most well known for her performative and gender-bending self-portraiture, her remarkable, multiform oeuvre has received renewed interest in recent decades as a pioneer of queer expression.
Published by Aperture/Tate. Edited by Louise Downie. Essays by James Stevenson, Katharine Conley, Gen Doy, Claire Follain, Tirza True Latimer, Jennifer Shaw and Kristine von Oehsen.
This first comprehensive overview of the oeuvre of Claude Cahun offers a wealth of previously unpublished photographs and drawings, illuminating not only her work but also that of her partner Marcel Moore and establishing for the first time the extent of their collaboration. It also includes the first thorough account of their Resistance operations, trial, imprisonment and attempted suicides during the Occupation. Cahun (1894-1954) is best known for riveting photographic self-portraits that seem eerily ahead of their time and has become the focus of an almost cultlike following. She acted out diverse identities, both male and female, in scenes ranging from severely simple to elaborately staged and was a pioneer of the gender-bending role-playing now seen in works by artists such as Cindy Sherman (born the year Cahun died), Nikki S. Lee and many others. Cahun (a pseudonym for Lucy Schwob) and Marcel Moore (Suzanne Malherbe, 1892-1972) were an extraordinary couple who worked and lived together for more than 40 years. Avid participants in the cultural avant-garde in Montparnasse during the 1920s and 30s, they ultimately moved to Jersey, in the Channel Islands, the only part of Great Britain to be occupied by the Germans during World War II. In Don't Kiss Me, seven international authors examine Cahun's and Moore's lives and art-making; their theatrical, literary and performance activities; their relationship with the Surrealist movement; their writings and Cahun's photographic technique. The extensive illustrations encompass not only Cahun's iconic images but also Moore's drawings and previously unseen photographs, manuscripts and ephemera.
PUBLISHER Aperture/Tate
BOOK FORMAT Hardcover, 9.75 x 9.75 in. / 240 pgs / 30 color and 410 bw.
PUBLISHING STATUS Pub Date 6/15/2006 No longer our product
DISTRIBUTION Contact Publisher Catalog:
PRODUCT DETAILS ISBN 9781597110259TRADE List Price: $45.00 CAD $55.00
Don't Kiss Me