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Jewish Culture & IdeasJewish History

Claude Cahun: Pioneering, Gender-Defying, Jewish Radical

Jennifer Shaw and Tirza True Latimer–two scholars who have been instrumental in repositioning Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore in the canon of early twentieth-century avant-garde art–come together for the first time in conversation to explore Cahun and Moore’s work, legacy, and Jewish life. Presented in conjunction with Show Me as I Want to Be Seen. 

Filmed on May 9, 2019 

About the speakers
Jennifer Shaw

Jennifer Shaw is Professor of Art History at Sonoma State University. Her work explores issues of gender and identity in art and literature. She is author of several books and articles including Dream States: Puvis de Chavannes, Modernism and the Fantasy of France (Yale University Press, 2002); Paris and the Countryside: Modern Life in Late-19th-Century France (2006); Reading Claude Cahun’s Disavowals (2013); and Exist Otherwise: The Life and Works of Claude Cahun (2017). She recently spent a month in Iceland on a writer's residency where she completed the manuscript of her first novel.  

Tirza True Latimer

Tirza True Latimer is Professor in Visual Studies and Interim Chair of the Visual Studies program at California College of the Arts. Her teaching, publications, and curatorial projects reflect on visual culture and visual politics from queer feminist perspectives. She has written extensively on lesbian artists practicing in France between the two World Wars, focusing in particular depth on the creative partnership between Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore. Her latest book Eccentric Modernisms: Making Differences in the History of American Art, was released by University of California Press in 2016. Her scholarship and critical writings have appeared in such journals as Art Journal, American Art, Archives of American Art Journal, GLQ, English Language Notes, Europe: revue littéraire mensuelle, Art Practical, SFMOMA's OpenSpace, and CAAreviews as well as dozens of exhibition catalogues and edited collections.

about the EXHIBITION

Show Me as I Want to Be Seen presents the work of groundbreaking French, Jewish artist Claude Cahun and her lifelong lover and collaborator Marcel Moore in dialogue with ten contemporary artists—Nicole Eisenman, Rhonda Holberton, Hiwa K, Young Joon Kwak, Zanele Muholi, Toyin Ojih Odutola, Gabby Rosenberg, Tschabalala Self, Davina Semo, and Isabel Yellin—to examine the complex and empowered representation of fluid identity.
 

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SUPPORTERS

Show Me as I Want to Be Seen is organized by The Contemporary Jewish Museum and curated by Natasha Matteson, Assistant Curator.

Support for this exhibition is generously provided by Suzanne and Elliott Felson; Maribelle and Stephen Leavitt; Gaia Fund; Lisa and John Pritzker Family Fund; Dorothy R. Saxe; Susan and Michael Steinberg; Bavar Family Foundation; Nellie and Max Levchin; Phyllis Moldaw; Roselyne Chroman Swig; The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts; Judith and Robert Aptekar; Dana Corvin and Harris Weinberg; Rosanne and Al Levitt; Joyce B. Linker; Douglas D. Mandell, Alexandra Moses; Eta and Sass Somekh; Ruth Stein; Toole Family Charitable Foundation; Marilyn and Murry Waldman; Kendra and Tom Kasten; Pacific Heights Plastic Surgery; Barbara Ravizza and John Osterweis; David Saxe; and Fred Levin and Nancy Livingston, The Shenson Foundation, in memory of Ben and A. Jess Shenson.

Public Programs are made possible by the Koret Foundation. Program support is provided by the Alan Templeton Endowment in Memory of Lieselotte and David Templeton.

Leadership Support for digital media at The Contemporary Jewish Museum is generously provided by the Jim Joseph Foundation.