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Medallion was a radical portrait to release in 1936. The painter, who became known for her still lifes, portraits, and landscapes, defiantly rejected societal pressure by wearing fastidiously tailored men's clothes and closely cut hair. Gluck was born Hannah Gluckstein, but she built an androgynous identity by insisting upon "no prefix, suffix or quotes" around her gender-neutral name. The composition evokes a sense of strength, power, and permanence. Her profile, highlighted and tempered with a brighter palette mirrors the artist.
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Behind her and looking up as if to the stars in the darkening night is her lover, Nesta Oberma. Her hair is dark, cropped, and masculine. The artist is in the foreground, her focused and intense expression clearly one of a painter at work. All that is visible beyond the head and shoulders of the figures is a low, green horizon. The gray background gives the piece a powerful, somber tone. This double portrait shows two women's faces in profile. This 'weightlifter' photograph has become one of the most revered (and regularly impersonated) queer icons of the twentieth century." Though Cahun's literary works and surrealist constructions are impressive, the artist's cult following is a response to the extraordinary self-portraits in which genders are swapped and mixed. Alex Pilcher explains, "A generation schooled in queer and postmodern thought rushed to embrace the forgotten artist as a prophet. Cahun died at the age of 60 and fell into obscurity but was rediscovered in the 1990s.
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#QUEER GAY DEFINITION SERIES#
In the portrait series Cahun transmutes from one version of herself to another, bringing both personal and political agency that has traditionally been denied to marginalized groups. Cahun consciously played with masculine and feminine stereotypes to destabilize accepted gender norms. French writer and Surrealist André Breton recognized Cahun as "one of the most curious spirits of our time" in the way Cahun rejected categorization as either a woman, lesbian, or artist. Before the late-twentieth century, non-binary identities are hard to spot or understand, but Claude Cahun changed all that, creating, along with partner Marcel Moore, a subversive body of work that explored new possibilities for gender, sexuality, and personal identity. With gender playing such a huge role in how we understand ourselves in society, transgender variance is an important subject for Queer Art. Born Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob, the French photographer, writer and political activist chose the name Claude Cahun after a number of different iterations before concluding "neuter is the only gender that always suits me". Cahun expression is camp, playful, and the posture is jaunty. Don't kiss me." This deliberately and playfully contradicts the lips drawn beneath the assertion, the hearts Cahun painted onto the leggings and cheeks, and the painted, puckered lips. Written across the artist's shirt are the words: "I am in training. Nipples drawn on the long-sleeve top give the impression that Cahun is bare chested. Dressed as a weightlifter, Cahun holds a dumbbell. In this carefully posed Self Portrait the artist sits on a chair with legs crossed, facing the viewer.
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Throughout all of these circumstances, Queer Art has addressed these issues covertly and overtly, insisting on a voice in the art world that routinely suppressed it. It wasn't until the late 20 th century that homosexuality was no longer considered a pathology by psychiatrists, and it wasn't until the 21 st century that marriage rights were granted to same-sex couples. Since the late 19 th century, cultural and legal responses to homosexuality have evolved, but it was only in the second half of the 20 th century that many of the laws criminalizing homosexual acts were overturned. While homosexuality has a long history, the modern sense of the term is relatively new. Adhering to no particular style, for over more than a century, Queer Art has used photography, portraiture, abstract painting, sculpture, and collage to explore the varieties and depths of queer identity. Any art that can be considered "queer" refers to the re-appropriation of the term in the 1980s, when it was snatched back from the homophobes and oppressors to become a powerful political and celebratory term to describe the experience of gay, lesbian, bisexual, transgender, and intersex people.