Who was Helen— of Troy, of Sparta, an eidolon, an elaborate male construction? – posted in Boulder, CO, March 14 2022

*Helen Glorified*, c. 1896, Gustave Moreau

I love this painting above by Gustave Moreau of “Helen Glorified.” I have immersed myself in the mythology and representation of the ancient Greek heroine Helen. I have chosen Helen as one of my heroines to study and consider and to soon embody in performative photographs (as I have recently embodied Eve and Salome). I am leaving in a week for Portugal to start my performance and work with Luis Branco on the Greek heroines Aphrodite, Helen and Sappho. Helen has been portrayed as “the most beautiful woman in the world” from ancient Greek times in countless poems, plays, paintings and artworks throughout history to contemporary times. Helen has also been presented as an original femme fatale— a seductress and enchantress and the main cause of the Trojan war. I am especially fascinated by her portrayal as an eidolon; a phantom, a ghost, a replicant of Helen sent to Troy with Paris while the “real” Helen was sent to Egypt. I am interested in how this figure / character of Helen has shaped ideas of beauty, sexuality, power and of womanhood in Western European culture. Here I will discuss and post some of the images, text, mythology and critique of Helen that interest me as I try to decipher how the mythos of Helen has helped to shape historical and contemporary notions of female agency or lack thereof.

I introduce a quote from Ruby Blondell, a contemporary classics scholar, on the idea of female power in ancient Greek culture as it relates to Helen:

“Female power poses notorious problems for ancient Greek culture. Because Greek ideology and cultural practice both place severe restrictions on female agency, it is difficult for women to exercise power without transgressing the norms constituted to regulate their behaviour. Since the control of female sexuality lies at the heart of these norms, sex—more specifically, the active female pursuit of an object of desire — is typically implicated in women’s transgressions and hence in the danger posed by the female as such. Insofar as female danger is wrapped up with sexual transgression, then, so is female power. And insofar as sex is bound,up with beauty, Helen of Troy — by definition the most beautiful woman of all time — is, also the most dangerous of women. Her godlike beauty grants her supreme erotic power over men, a power that resulted in what was, in Greek eyes, the most devastating war of all time.”

Ruby Blondell “‘Third Cheerleader from the left’: from Homer’s Helen to Helen of Troy”

*Leda and the Swan* – bas relief, c. 50 – 100 AD, British Museum

Mythos and legend (and violence and lust) surround Helen a plenty. She is said to have been born a daughter of the king of the gods, Zeus. Her mother was generally considered to have been queen Leda, the mortal wife of the king of Sparta, Tyndareus. Zeus took the form of a giant swan and in some stories befriended and seduced Leda, in other stories raped Leda. Leda bore a giant egg from which Helen came forth. In other versions the goddess of divine retribution Nemesis, in bird form, is named as Helen’s mother still with Zeus the father and the egg was then given to Leda to hatch. There are several other important children born of this mythical egg. I prefer the story of Zeus taking the form of a swan (a symbol in ancient Greece of; light, transformation, intuition and grace) and then seducing the Spartan queen Leda. Alternately, in Greek literature and myth, the gods are always having their way with mortal women. In any case there is a beautiful bird, a god and a goddess, a queen, a possible rape or seduction and a giant egg involved in the conception of Helen.

The gods and goddesses (and Aphrodite and Helen specifically) are also involved in one of the presumed reasons for the Trojan war. In the story of the “Judgement of Paris” the handsome prince of Troy, Paris, is asked to judge / choose the most beautiful of the three goddesses: Aphrodite, Athena and Hera. All three goddesses offered Paris various bribes—Aphrodite offered Paris “the most beautiful woman in the world” Helen of Sparta. Paris gives the beauty prize (a golden apple) to Aphrodite and ultimately Paris goes off to find Helen. This story is memorialized in the painting below by Peter Paul Rubens. There are many repercussions from this original beauty contest . . .

*The Judgement of Paris*, c. 1636, Peter Paul Rubens

What happens next has been told in many different versions in ancient Greece texts and throughout the millennia. The famed Trojan war, if it ever really happened, would have taken place around the 12^th century BC. The ancient Greek poet Homer wrote the Iliad and the Odyssey sometime around the 8^th century BC. Homer writes of Helen in both the Iliad and the Odyssey in one of her earliest portrayals, though much was already known about Helen in Greece at that time. The Iliad takes place during the 10^thand final year of the Trojan War and Homer places Helen there. It is not clear how Helen came to Troy; did Helen fall in love with the handsome Paris and leave her husband and country for her lover? or did Paris abduct and or rape Helen and take her to Troy? This is never made clear—is she a treacherous slut or a hapless victim? I vote the treacherous slut, at least she has some power and choice in the situation.

And what did Helen really look like?

Female or Goddess Head from Mycenae, Greece, c. 1300 – 1250 BC, National Archeological Museum, Athens

*Helen of Troy*, c. 1898, Evelyn De Morgan

And did she go happily or was she abducted /raped?

*The Loves of Paris and Helen*, c. 1788, Jacques-Louis David

*The Rape of Helen*, c. 1533 – 1535, attributed to the circle of Francesco Primaticcio

In this story of love and seduction and/ or rape and abduction Helen is taken to Troy and suffers through the epic 10 year-long Trojan War (hated by most everyone). Paris is killed and many many others die and ultimately the forces of Menelaus (Agamemnon, Odysseus et all) deal a final blow to Troy with the Trojan horse ploy. Helen survives the war. Menelaus enters into the burning remains of Troy to kill her but is so struck by her beauty (and apparently her breasts) that he drops his sword and takes her back to Sparta. In Homer’s Odyssey Helen is back as the queen of Sparta and she and Menelaus seem to be ok.

*Recovery of Helen by Menelaus*, Attic black figure amphora from Vulci, c. 550 BC, Staatliche Antikensammlungen, Munich

The ancient Greek author Euripides in his play Helen (and several other ancient and modern authors) tell an alternate version of Helen’s locus and behavior during the Trojan War. Euripides tells the story that the goddess Hera was upset by the “Judgement of Paris” (when Paris declared Aphrodite the most beautiful). Hera created an eidolon, a phantom, a replicant of Helen and had the messenger god Hermes whisk the “real” Helen off to Egypt. The Helen who escaped with Paris, betraying her husband and her country and initiating the ten-year conflict in Troy, was actually an eidolon, a ghost, a look-alike. In Euripides play, the “real” Helen stays seventeen long years in Egypt remaining loyal to her husband Menelaus. The “real” Helen remains virtuous and true. The phantom Helen, the eidolon, the virtual Helen (who by the way breathes and has sex) is the treacherous slut who runs off with Paris to Troy and suffers the 10 year Trojan war. I love this idea of the double Helen, it speaks to the concept that Helen is really a construction, an idea (created by men). The idea of Helen exemplifies these constrasting values placed on women of virtue and fidelity versus sexual proclivity and treachery. Many of Gustave’s Moreaus’s paintings allude to this eidolon of Helen at Troy.

*Study of Helen*, c. 1890, Gustave Moreau

*Helen at the Scaean Gate*, c. 1888, Gustave Moreau

And lastly, I look to contemporary conceptual artist Eleanor Antin and her project “Helen’s Odyssey.” Eleanor Antin is a feminist fairy godmother artist for me and I admire her work tremendously, she is 87 years old now and still going strong. In her 2007 major project “Helen’s Odyssey,” Antin constructed elaborate photo tableu’s depicting various scene’s from Helen’s mythological life. Antin depicts two Helens also; one a blonde kind of ditsy fun loving Helen and the other a dark and more demonic Helen. The image I love most of all in this series is the image titled “Constructing Helen,” where various tiny male artists (poets, sculptors, painters, writers) construct a giant sculpture of Helen laying prone in all her glorious beauty. Of course, this alludes to the eidolon of Helen, the mirage of Helen, the idea of Helen, the art of Helen and her construction as a giant male fantasy.

*The Judgement of Paris*, c. 2007, Eleanor Antin

*The Construction of Helen*, c. 2007, Eleanor Antin

And I am off to Portugal March 21st to create my version, my embodiment of Helen.

My Aphrodite – posted in Boulder, Colorado March 3rd, 2022

Muse, tell me the things done by golden Aphrodite,

the one from Cyprus, who arouses sweet desire for gods

and who subdues the populations of mortal humans,

and birds as well, who fly in the sky, as well as all beasts

– all those that grow on both dry land and the sea [pontos].

They all know the things done by the one with the beautiful garlands, the one from Cythera.

From the anonymous “Homeric Hymn to Aphrodite” c. 7^th century BC translated by Gregory Nagy

Aphrodite The Great Goddess from Cyprus. Early fifth-century BC statue of Aphrodite, showing her wearing a cylinder crown and holding a dove. Neus Museum, Berlin.

Aphrodite (the ancient Greek goddess of beauty, love, marriage, passion, pleasure, procreation, prostitution and more) has arisen for me as a fascinating representative of female sexuality and agency. She is literally a fluid subject born of the ocean and celebrating, performing, supporting (and manipulating) love in all its various forms. I have begun my research into the mythos, history and meaning of Aphrodite along with her spiritual ancient Greek daughters/sisters the beautiful Helen of Troy (and Sparta and Argos) and the great poet Sappho of Lesbos. I intend to enact and embody these heroines of ancient Greece when I return to Portugal in a few weeks (March 22^nd) to work with my collaborator, photographer, Luis Branco. This process of investigation and manifestation, that I have employed with several other historical heroines (most recently Eve and Salome), puts me in a kind of fugue state. I literally enter into these fabled women’s footsteps, bosoms, psyches and the mythologies that surround them. I examine these heroines / figures in ancient texts, contemporary scholarship and also in their representations in multiple art forms throughout history. Of course, many of these historic representations and texts are by men, so I must take this into account in my reimagining of these heroines. I contemplate these storied women and remake them in my own vision and visage.

Astarte or Ishtar from Susa. 1300 – 1100 BC, moulded figurine. Naked woman, hands maintaining breasts. Louvre, Paris.

Aphrodite emerges in early Greek history, literature, mythology as a syncretic goddess. Her powerful antecedent goddesses from the ancient civilizations across the waters of the Eastern Mediterranean are the Bronze Age deities; Innana, Ishtar and Astarte (and there are many more). Astarte was a goddess of the Phoenician and Canaanite pantheons associated with war, sexuality and royal power. All these ancient goddesses represented sexuality, power and fertility in varying degrees.

The central panel of the “Ludovisi Throne” c. 460 BC. The iconography of this ancient bas-relief is most often read as Aphrodite rising from the sea attended by two Horai (Greek goddesses of the seasons). Museo Nazionale Romano di Palazzo Altemps, Roma.

Aphrodite has been represented as a powerful, sometimes deceitful and manipulative, overwhelmingly beautiful and seductive goddess from her early beginnings in Greek mythology, cosmology, poetry and art. There are several different legends of Aphrodite’s birth— I am most compelled by the story of her primal birth in Hesiod’s “Theogony” (literally “The Birth of the Gods” composed between 730 and 700 BC). The story goes like this . . .

The world began with the spontaneous generation of four primordial beings: Chaos (the original Space in which creation takes place); then Gaia (Earth); Tartarus (Void) and Eros (Desire). These primal beings produced many elemental progeny. From Chaos came Darkness, Night, Brightness, Day . . . Gaia’s progeny includes Ouranus the Sky god, Ourea the Mountain god and Pontus the Sea god. Gaia (the elemental Earth goddess) has many offspring with her own son Ouranus the Sky god; these include the twelve Titans (Chronos among them), Cyclops and many other pretty horrific primal beings. Gaia becomes weary of the burden of bearing these difficult beings with Ouranus. She devises a plan to castrate Ouranos with a huge metal sickle or knife. Gaia asks their son Chronos to perform this task and Chronos agrees.

This is part of the story from Hesiod’s “Theogony” lines 176 to 200 (I am not sure whose translation this is):

And now on came great Ouranos, bringing Night with him.

And, longing for love, he settled himself all over Earth.

From his dark hiding-place, the son reached out

With his left hand, while with his right he swung

The fiendishly long and jagged sickle, pruning the genitals

Of his own father with one swoop and tossing them

Behind him, where they fell to no small effect.

Earth soaked up all the bloody drops that spurted out,

And as the seasons went by she gave birth to the Furies

And to great Giants gleaming in full armor, spears in hand,

And to the Meliai, as ash-tree Nymphs are generally called.

The genitalia themselves, freshly cut with flint, were thrown

Clear of the mainland into the restless, white-capped sea,

Where they floated a long time. A white foam from the god-flesh

Collected around them, and in that foam a maiden developed

And grew. Her first approach to land was near holy Cythera,

And from there she floated on to the island of Cypros.

There she came ashore, an awesome, beautiful divinity.

Tender grass sprouted up under her slender feet.

Aphrodite

Is her name in speech human and divine, since it was in foam

She was nourished. But she is also called Cythereia since

She reached Cythera, and Cyprogenes because she was born

On the surf-line of Cypros, and Philommedes because she loves

The organs of sex, from which she made her epiphany.

Eros became her companion, and ravishing Desire waited on her

At her birth and when she made her debut among the Immortals.

From that moment on, among both gods and humans,

She has fulfilled the honored function that includes

Virginal sweet-talk, lovers’ smiles and deceits,

And all of the gentle pleasures of sex.

This is quite the elemental image and idea— beautiful Aphrodite emerges fully formed; born of Ouranus’s castrated giant phallus. The “foam” from which Aphrodite arises is the semen of her father Ouranus the god of the Sky. Her half-brother Chronos is the perpetrator of this heinous deed, castrating his own father at the bequest of his mother Earth (Gaia). Aphrodite is gestated in this matrix/fluid of her father’s phallus. She arises from the sea foam / seminal fluid with her two companions Eros (Eros is the primordial god of Love and sex) and Himeros (the god of uncontrollable and ravishing Desire). One of Aphrodite’s Greek names is Philommedes which has two meanings; both “genital loving” and “smile loving.” This story of her birth in Hesiod’s Theogony pre-dates the birth of Zeus and the other Olympian gods and goddesses. In other stories (Homer et all) she is the progeny of Zeus and the Titan goddess of the ocean, Dione.

Aphrodite with Himeros (ravishing Desire), detail from a silver kantharos, 420-410 BC, part of the Vassil Bojkov collection, Sofia, Bulgaria.

Aphrodite was worshipped throughout the Mediterranean from the early Archaic period of Greek history (750 BC – 500 BC) on through the Classical and Hellenistic times. The Romans took Aphrodite on as their own and she morphs into the goddess Venus, along with the other dieties in the Greek Pantheon. Temples were built for her worship, rituals were performed in her name. Statues and artworks heralded her beauty and power and her many physical and spiritual attributes. Aphrodite was associated the element of water that she was born of and the islands of Cythera and Cyprus. She was also associated with sacred mountains, where temples were built in her name. Aphrodite was floral—she loved flowers and fruits (the rose, narcissus, lily, poppy, pomegranate, apple, quince). Birds are an important part of Aphrodite’s entourage; doves, ducks, geese and swans. Aphrodite is intrinsically “golden”—this means not only gold the precious metal; her goldenness is her inherent beauty. Aphrodite is associated with the dawn, she is a solar goddess.

Aphrodite riding on a (swan or) goose, ca. 460 BC, pottery, painter Pistoxenos, British Museum, London.

The ancient Greek Aphrodite occupied a broad and bountiful sexual territory. She was the goddess of marital love as well as erotic love. Aphrodite was married to the crippled god Hephaistos—god of Fire, craft and metalsmithing but she was not in love with Hephaistos. She had a long passionate affair with Ares the god of War. Hephaistos caught them in the act of love and cast a finely crafted golden net over the lovers, which they were later released from. Hephaistos divorced Aphrodite, divorce amongst the gods . . . very modern. She had liaisons with many of the other gods; Dionysius, Hermes and Poseidon. Goddesses were not supposed to lay with mortal men, however not so with Aphrodite. Aphrodite had a passionate and tragic affair with the beautiful mortal man Adonis, as well as her affair with the Trojan prince Anchises. She had many children: with Ares she had Eros, Phobos, Deimos, Harmonia, Pothos, Anteros, and Himeros; with Hermes she had Hermaphroditus; with Posiedon she had Rhodos and Eryx; with Dionysus she had Peitho, The Graces and Priapu; and with the Trojan prince Anchises she bore Aeneus. Aphrodite was sexually generous and liberated, the lover of genitals (smile) and also very generative in terms of her progeny.

Aphrodite of Knidos – Roman copy of the original Greek sculpture by Praxiteles c 4^th century BC, Museo Nazionale Romano di Palazzo Altemps, Roma.

Aphrodites beauty and sensuality was celebrated in sculptures and paintings from early Greek times and on into the Hellenistic and Roman times. The Aphrodite of Knidos is perhaps the most famous of these sculptures. The original sculpture is lost to us and the sculpture above is a Roman copy of the original Greek sculpture by Praxiteles of Athens created around the 4^th century BC. The original sculpture is believed to be one of the first life sized representations of the nude female form in Greek history. The original sculpture has been copied many times and evolved in various ways. You can see in the Aphrodite of Knidos sculpture that Aphrodite is gesturing modestly and covering her pubic area. In many of the subsequent nude Aphrodite / Venus sculptures, she also covers a breast. The term “Venus pudica” is a designation used in western art that refers to this classical form of a woman hiding her pubic area, and sometimes her breasts, almost with a sense of shame. Early Greek sculptures of Aphrodite started this trend of modesty or shame (which arose again in the Renaissance and afterwards) which seems unfortunate to me in terms of the representation of female sexuality and beauty. Although these nude sculptures are gorgeous and sensuous, they also speak to the disempowerment of Aphrodite the goddess of Love. Our “original” Aphrodite; who arose from the phallus of her father the Sky; who lay with the gods and mortals without shame; would not cover herself coyly in this way.

*Aphrodite* of the Syracuse type. Roman copy of the 2nd century CE after a Greek original of the 4th century BC; neck, head and left arm are restorations by Antonio Canova. National Archeological Museum of Athens.

*Venus Callipyge*, “Venus of the beautiful buttocks,” anonymous, Roman 1^st or 2^nd century BC copy of a Greek Original, Museo Archeoligico Nazionale di Napoli, Naples.

*Venus de Milo,* 150 and 125 BC, the work was originally attributed to the Greek sculptor Praxiteles, the statue is now widely agreed to be the work of Alexandros of Antioch. Louvre, Paris.

Rome adapted and repurposed the mythology and iconography of Aphrodite into the goddess Venus, still a powerful goddess of love and but also victory and war. During the early Christian era evidence of Venus and Aphrodite (and many other Greek and Roman icons, temples and emblems of “pagan” culture) were destroyed or desecrated and built upon. Aphrodite / Venus submerged / disappeared for hundreds of years . . .

*Head of Aphrodite* with a cross. From a larger than life-size statue, made in the 1st century A.D. copying a Praxitelean original of about 350-325 B.C. The crosses on the forehead and jaw were incised in the Christian era. Found in the Roman Agora of Athens. National Archaeological Museum of Athens. Athens, Greece.

Aphrodite reborn . . .

The Birth of Venus, c. 1484 – 1486, Sandro Botticelli

Aphrodite / Venus was resurrected for us in the Western world during the Renaissance and beyond. In Sandro Botticelli’s “Birth of Venus” she is literally reborn in her golden glory and she is accompanied by the gods of the winds, Zephyr and Aura. The Hora of spring is ready to cloth Aphrodite / Venus. I have posted below some of my favorite and more famous Aphrodite / Venus paintings of the Renaissance, the Baroque, the Rococo, the French Academic and the Pre-Raphaelite periods. Only one of these paintings is by a woman, the Italian Renaissance painter Artemisia Gentileschi. Aphrodite / Venus is always white, the Ruben’s painting shows her with her black maid. Aphrodite / Venus’s influence on our thoughts about beauty, desire and different forms of love and sexual relationships and womanhood reflects back to us in subtle and complicated ways. Notice still the “Venus pudica” stance in many of these paintings which can be either standing or prone. She is always sexy but is she always powerful/empowered?

Venus with a Satyr and Two Cupids, c. 1586 -88, Anibale Carracci

Venus with a Mirror, c. 1613, Peter Paul Rubens

Venus and Cupid, c. 1626, Artemisia Gentileschi

The Toilette of Venus, c. 1751, Francois Boucher

The Birth of Venus, c. 1863, Alexandre Cabanel

Venus Verticordia, c. 1864, Dante Gabriel Rossetti

And in the 20^th Century we had many “Golden Goddesses” of film, here are a few of my favorites:

circa 1948: Ava Gardner holding a statuette of the Venus de Milo in a scene from the Universal film ‘One Touch Of Venus’

circa 1953: Rita Hayworth in the film ‘Salome”

circa 1955: Marilyn Monroe in the film ‘Seven Year Itch’

circa 1963: Elizabeth Taylor in the ‘film ‘Cleopatra’

And finally my favorite Golden Goddess / Diva of the 21^st Century—who does appear sexy, powerful and pregnant at the 2017 Grammy Awards:

Beyoncé Giselle Knowles-Carter at the 2017 Grammy awards

This has been a deep dive for me into the origins and evolution of “My Aphrodite” —goddess of Beauty, Love, Sexuality and Power . . .

Beckoning Salome – posted in Boulder, CO Jan 19, 2022

all images by Sherry Wiggins and Luís Filipe Branco, 2021

I have been looking through the thousands of images that I made with photographer Luís Branco in October at the OBRAS Artist Residencies in Portugal. We had a very productive time—our work has become increasingly theatrical, though always improvisational and never choreographed. Sorting the meaning and impact of the images takes time, reflection (and editing) to figure out.

It has been difficult to look at these images where I act out and embody the heroine Salome. Who was Salome anyway? Salome has been portrayed by poets and painters, in theatre and opera, and in film; as an alluring beauty, a chaste princess, a licentious woman, an evil seductress, a murderous vamp, an orientalist female visage, and more. Salome’s representation has evolved over the last two thousand years from its biblical beginnings, however her manifestations have never lost their misogynist overtones. She is adorned in jewels, semi-naked and swathed in diaphanous fabrics. She is often pictured with the head of John the Baptist on a platter, sometimes kissing his bloody head. Flaubert, Gustave Moreau, Oscar Wilde, Aubrey Beardsley, Richard Strauss, and even Al Pacino have all had their way with this damsel. Performers and actors; Mata Hari, Maude Allan, Rita Hayworth, Jessica Chastain have donned her immodest silken veils.

And why have I, a 66 year-old feminist conceptual artist, chosen to portray Salome?

By embodying Salome, I am beckoning the sexist male gaze that has tainted this mythical creature from her early beginnings. Concurrently I am questioning this gaze.

I arrived in Portugal last October with costume jewelry and gold and silver fabrics to bedeck myself. I found a fabulous brass tray at the Saturday market in Estremoz, the perfect platter for the imagined head of John the Baptist. We shot many images in the studio at OBRAS with a simple black background, the tray, the necklace and me. I am exposed (my sagging skin, my aging body).

When my partner, Jamie, saw these last few images she asked “What were you thinking about?” I was, actually, thinking about Oscar Wilde’s Salome and her unrequited love for Jokanaan (John the Baptist), of her kissing the decapitated head of her beloved. Yes, O.W.’s Salome is pretty weird . . .

We were also shooting Salome in the castle at Evoramonte.

She is a dream, an apparition . . . much like Gustave Moreau’s painting “The Apparition” and the golden and silvered wall of the castle appears like a mirage or a beautiful abstract painting.

One of our last photoshoots, Salome at Sunset, was Luis’s idea and I improvised my Salome in the rental car at sunset, not quite so self-serious . This was fun.

Luís and my rendition of Salome is that of an aging princess, a slutty siren, a phantasm, a self-reflective woman, a wannabe movie star. My Salome is sometimes sexy, vulnerable, a little bit witchy, mystical, even funny. She shows her age, her make-up is a little overdone, her countenance confident, her body still strong and able. I can beckon Salome, I can beckon your gaze and my own gaze at myself.

I am looking forward to returning to Portugal to produce more “heroines” this spring. Luís Branco and I will have a large exhibition of our work “The Mirror Between Us” installed in the beautiful Igreja de Sao Vicente in Evora, Portugal in April of this year. We would like to thank Carolien van der Laan and Ludger van der Eerden of the OBRAS Foundation for their continuing support of our work.

Heroines Performance Art

WIP – Making Eve / The Serpent and the Marmeleira Tree – posted in Boulder, CO November 7, 2021

all images: Sherry Wiggins and Luís Branco, 2021

I have been home for a little over a week now—settling in and beginning to look at the many images I made in Portugal at the OBRAS Artist Residencies with my collaborator, photographer Luís Branco. It was the best residency yet at OBRAS Portugal, this was my seventh residency at OBRAS Portugal (lucky 7) and I have been collaborating with Luís in Portugal and in the Netherlands since 2015. I arrived at Herdade da Marmeleira (the site of OBRAS Portugal) and I was greeted by my dear friends Carolien and Ludger, the founders of Foundation OBRAS and my hosts and major supporters of Luís and my work.

My intent was to shoot (with Luís) my embodiments and reinterpretations of the heroines Eve and of Salome with some reference to their historic representations in painting and literature. The characters / heroines I am choosing are all based on the ultimate inspiration for this project Claude Cahun— both their 1925 text Heroines as well as Cahun’s more theatrical self- portraits and performative images. There are 15 heroines in Cahun’s text (Eve, Judith, Penelope, Helen, Sappho, The Virgin Mary, Cinderella, Marguerite, Salome, Beauty, THE ESSENTIAL WIFE or the the Unknown Princess (whom I have already represented in THE UNKNOWN HEROINE book and exhibition), Sophie, Salamacis, and THE ANDROGYNE. Of course there is tongue and cheek involved with Cahun’s re-presentations of these heroines, and also my own – after all I am a 66 year old feminist artist embodying these fabled women and Cahun was a radical feminist, gender fluid, artist in the early 20^th century rewriting the allegories and stories of their lives.

I was a little intimidated at the beginning, embodying these illustrious heroines seemed a daunting task. Luís and I began shooting Eve / the Serpent in the beautiful studio at OBRAS under more controlled conditions. This way I could slowly take on this “original woman,” mother of us all, and apparently the reason we are not all still in paradise. Working in the studio situation I began to get my dangerous woman Eve / Serpent ju ju going and Luis captured some great images. Here are a few:

There are lots of representations of Eve but this watercolor by William Blake “The Temptation of Eve” (created for Milton’s Paradise Lost) spoke to me. I love the organic quality of the tree and the fruit, the serpent wrapping around Eve’s body, and Adam seemingly unaware of the circumstances. I also like the conflation of Eve and the Serpent, they are one body. I am a Buddhist and not a biblical scholar, but I do sincerely question this idea that “they” (Eve and the Serpent) are responsible for the expulsion from Paradise. I had found this super cool holographic snake fabric and special gloves (during my preparations in the US) and I brought this new costume to use for this embodiment.

The Temptation of Eve, William Blake, 1808

Then we started shooting Eve / Serpent Woman by the Marmeleira tree in the courtyard at OBRAS. As I have written before, I chose the Marmeleira tree at OBRAS because it is so beautiful and also because there is some research and speculation about the original “forbidden fruit” in Paradise. If our biblical paradise was located on this earth, it was most likely in some more southern habitat. Apples are a more northern fruit. Some say that the Marmelo fruit / the Quince fruit could have been the fruit of the Tree of Knowledge. The fig, the persimmon, the pomegranate, are also possible suspects. We did our first shoot with the Marmeleira tree at dusk. Here are a few of those images:

Luis came back a week later and we did two more photo shoots (one in the morning and one in the evening) with the Marmeleira tree, this time with lights. Here are a few images from these last two photoshoots.

Cydney Payton has been helping me go through the many images of Eve and the Marmeleira tree. I am really excited about this new heroine of mine. I have many other images to sort through including my Salome embodiments. Lots of really good work! Other friends have been helping me sort the images, thank you! I am also sure that this project will go on with many more of Claude Cahun and my heroines. Va va voom!!

My friend Karla Dakin found this excellent article which confirms my belief in the marmelo / quince – It wasn’t an apple:

https://wsimag.com/food-and-wine/63211-it-wasnt-an-apple

learning to see – posted October 6, 2021 near Evoramonte, Portugal

Self-Portrait, Sherry Wiggins, Oct. 2021

I am settling into the paradise, spaciousness and good company of other artists here at the OBRAS Artist Residency in the Alentejo region of Portugal. I have been lucky enough to be a guest here many times, so it feels wonderfully comfortable to me here and the hospitality and gracious care of Carolien and Ludger (my hosts) is such a gift. I have been shooting “self-portraits” early in the mornings with my relatively new Sony camera. This morning I found a rhythm with the light, the autofocus and the composition. One of Graciela Iturbide’s self-portraits, the remarkable Mexican photographer, was the inspiration for beginning—but no dead birds for me. I am showing her portrait below.

Self – Portrait, Graciela Iturbide, date?

The landscape of earth, ancient stone, cork oak (and many sheep) surrounds me and from my little casa I look up at the mountain of Evoramonte. The building are all made of stone and earth. I found these stones that Ludger lovingly excavated from an ancient stone wall. They look like eyes to me.

Just beginning, so happy to be here and to have the space and stillness.

Lots of love and gratitude to all.

More Heroines – posted in Boulder, Colorado Sept 12, 2021

William Blake, The Temptation and Fall of Eve (an illustration for Milton’s Paradise Lost), 1808

I am getting ready to embody more of Claude Cahun’s “Heroines” and make them my own. As I have written before, remarkable French artist Claude Cahun published the text “Heroines” in 1925 as a series of fifteen short stories and monologues. “Heroines” remains a radical text that deconstructs gender roles and stereotypes in Western literature with such figures as Cinderella, Salome, Eve, Sappho and Androgyne. Norman MacAfee translated Cahun’s text into English and the “Heroines” text was published in the book/ catalogue Inverted Odysseys in 1999. I acted out one of the essays, “THE ESSENTIAL WIFE or the the Unknown Princess,” in performative photographs that I made with Luis Branco for the project and book THE UNKNOWN HEROINE which I just published this year. Norman MacAfee allowed me to use the translated Cahun text in my book. Now I intend to embody the rest of Cahun’s Heroines. I have been looking at representations of these heroines in western art history. I will be reacting to these representations and asserting my own flavor and ideas (as well as Cahun’s more feminist interpretations of these women). I hope to start shooting this project in Portugal in a few weeks with Luis Branco. I am going to start with Eve ….

Following are some of these historic visual representations (albeit mostly by Western European white male painters). Maybe we can change these stories.

Peter Paul Rubens, Samson and Delilah, 1609

Artemisia Gentileschi, Judith Slaying Holofernes, 1612

Martine Gutierrez, Judith (from the series ANTI-ICON), 2021

John Roddam Spencer Stanhope, Penelope, 1864

Jacques-Louise David, The Loves of Paris and Helen, 1788

Simeon Solomon, Sappho and Erinna in a Garden at Mytilene, 1864

Sandro Botticelli, Madonna of the Book, 1480

Gustave Dore, Cinderella (an illustration for Charles Perrault’s fairy tales), 1862

Eugene Delacroix, Faust trying to seduce Marguerite (an illustration for Faust, Goethe), 1825

Walter Crane, Beauty and the Beast (illustration), 1874

THE ESSENTIAL WIFE or the the Unknown Princess
Sherry Wiggins and Luis Branco, Image from THE UNKNOWN HEROINE series, 2021

Horace Castelli, illustration from “Sophie’s Misfortunes,” 1858

Francois-Joseph Navez, The Nymph Salmacis and Hermaphroditus, 1829

These are the heroines Cahun writes of in her text: Eve; Delilah; Judith; Penelope; Helen; Sappho; Virgin Mary; Cinderella; Marguerite; Salome; Beauty; THE WIFE or the Unknown Princess; Sophie; Salmacis; and The Androgyne. I hope to explore and embody all these heroines.

Madame Yevonde

On Their Shoulders–posted in Boulder, Colorado August 7th, 2021

Me / Sherry Wiggins, On Their Shoulders (in my studio), 2021

I am beginning a new practice in the studio (and other places too)—I am learning to photograph myself with my new Sony camera. I have initiated this self-imaging practice with a conceptual and physical ritual—I have chosen 17 women artists: all are conceptual artists and or photographers and or performance artists using photography and film as a medium. I would consider all of them feminists, several are or were writers and theorists as well, all born before 1960. I stand on their shoulders; both figuratively and literally. I have been researching and looking at their work and also collecting books about all of them. I intend to choose a few of each of their works in photography and/or film and simulate or extrapolate on their works with myself as the subject. This is a long-term project that lies adjacent to my on-going project with remarkable women artists of the 20^th century “Searching Selves.” This is both an exercise in self-representation and a homage to these amazing women’s work and contributions.

I have repurposed a space in my studio that is evenly lit in the daytime. I hung a black cloth on the wall and over a table. I then set the books of my 17 women artists (18 including myself, notice THE UNKNOWN HEROINE on the top) on the black table. I settled my naked shoulders atop the stack of books and shot multiple images of myself resting / posing on their / our books.

Following are short descriptions of the 17 women’s art practices with an image that exemplifies their work (for me). There is a spectrum of representation (of women and of self) that all these artists cast in their work and on whose shoulders I hope to follow and embody. These artists spur me on and inspire me / conspire with me.

Madame Yevonde was born Yevonde Philone Cumbers in London, U.K. (1893-!975). I have just discovered the work of Madame Yevonde. She was known for her use of color and her commercial and portrait photography. She was also a feminist and a suffragette in the early part of the 20^th century. I am particularly interested in the series of portraits she made of British aristocratic ladies in the guise of various goddesses and mythical figures; now known as the “Goddess” series. These images appear to me as both beautiful and “camp” representations of the historical and archetypal feminine.

Madame Yevonde, Lady Michael Balcon as Minerva (from the Goddess series), c. 1935

Claude Cahun was born Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob in Nantes, France (1894-1954). My adoration, fascination and study of writer, photographer, performance artist Claude Cahun continues with a more intensive study of their “self” presentations. Cahun’s life-long representation of their multiple selves in photographs displays their continual questioning and performance of identity, gender and self. You can read more about Claude Cahun on my previous blog posts. https://sherrywigginsblog.com/2018/12/16/my-heroine-claude-cahun-posted-in-boulder-co-december-16-2018/

Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, Self-Portrait, c. 1927

Maya Deren was born Eleonora Derenkowska in Kiev, Russia (1917-1961). Maya was born to a Jewish family; her father was a psychologist. They fled Russia for the US in 1922. Maya was brilliant and well educated; she received her master’s degree in English literature from Smith College. She was also beautiful and multi-talented —Maya Deren worked as: an avant-garde filmmaker; choreographer; dancer; anthropologist; film theorist and photographer. I love Deren’s self-presentation in her films. I have studied and mimicked her 1943 film “Meshes of the Afternoon” with my 2013 project “Me and Maya.” I would like to again look at her self- representation particularly in the 1944 film “At Land.” Deren projects a meditative and dream-like spell in her work—I am interested in exploring various states of mind and of the subconscious in my own work.

Maya Deren, still from the film “Meshes of the Afternoon” (by Maya Deren and Alexander Hammid, 1943

Anne Noggle was born in Evanston, Illinois USA (1922-2005). Noggle was an amazing artist/photographer whom I have only recently discovered. Noggle was an aviator in her early life and a WASP pilot during WWII. She then studied art and photography at the University of New Mexico in her forties and later taught photography at UNM. Noggle is known for her frank black and white photographic portrayals of older women and particularly of herself. As I question why I (a 66-year-old woman) am compelled to be photographed by others and now by myself, I look to Anne Noggle as a mentor and guide. I realize that the representation of older women continues to be taboo in our society—our physical, sexual, spiritual and even intellectual selves remain relatively invisible.

Anne Noggle, Self-Image in Cochita Lake, 1978

Helena Almeida was born in Lisbon, Portugal (1934-2018). I am forever influenced by the work of Portuguese conceptualist Helena Almeida whom, I have studied in depth. Almeida trained early as a painter and in her life-long art practice she used her body as the subject (her entire body, her feet, her face, her hands) in simple black and white photographs that she sometimes painted with blue or red paint. Almeida’s work crosses the boundaries of painting, performance and photography and film. I heart Helena Almeida; she was the original impetus for my work in Portugal with photographer Luis Branco. I have written about Almeida extensively on my blog: https://sherrywigginsblog.com/2015/08/24/i-have-started-my-research-on-helena-almeida/

Helena Almeida, Inhabited Painting, 1975

Lorraine O’Grady was born in Boston, Massachusetts USA (1934). O’Grady is a conceptual artist, performance artist, writer, curator and critic. I am very sorry that I just missed her retrospective at the Brooklyn Museum “Both/And”. O’Grady came to her art practice in her fourties, after a career as a translator, intelligence analyst and even rock critic. O’Grady’s performative, video and installation work explores the cultural construction of identity and particularly that of black female subjectivity. She is also an art critic and writer. Her 1992 paper/essay “Olympia’s Maid-Reclaiming Black Female Subjectivity” was one of the first pieces of critical writing to focus on the black female body. I am excited to dive into her work and in particular her recently published collections of writings “Drawing in Space,” which also documents her amazing body of visual work. I love her early performance of the black beauty queen Mlle Bourgeoise decked out in a gown made of 180 pairs of white gloves.

Lorraine O’Grady, “Mlle Bourgeoise Noire leaves the safety of home,” from Mlle Bourgeioise Noire Goes to the New Museum, 1981

VALIE EXPORT was born Waltraud Lehner in Linz, Austria (1940). VALIE EXPORT’s work is fabulous and brazenly feminist—even her name is a performance, she refused to stick with her father’s name and rebranded herself VALIE EXPORT (like the cigarette). I am especially influenced by her performative photography and body works. Her public performances of the late 60s and early 70s are brave, sometimes confrontational, serious but also kind of tongue and cheek – like EXPORT’s 1969 documentation of her performance “Action Pants-Genital Panic” shown below. For the performance, Export cut out the crotch of her pants and walked throughout a cinema/ theatre offering her crotch while pointing a gun at various people’s heads. I have written about Export on my blog: https://sherrywigginsblog.com/2017/03/13/why-the-body-why-valie-export-posted-in-boulder-march-12-2017/

VALIE EXPORT, documentation of the performance “Action Pants – Genital Panic,” 1969

)Anna Maria Maiolino was born in Scalia, Calabria, Italy (1942). Maiolino moved to Brazil with her family in 1960 (transplanted from Italy and Venezuela) and was involved in the Brazilian art movements of the 60s and 70s and has continued throughout her life as a significant and prolific artist. Maiolino works across a wide variety of mediums including; works on paper, poetry, installation, performance and sculpture. I admire her work tremendously. I love this relatively simple image below “Por um Fio / By a Thread.” Anna Maria is in the center, her mother to the left and her daughter then ten years old on the right.. It is a masterpiece depicting the continuity of the feminine (for those of us who are lucky enough to have a mother and a daugher alive at the same time). We are both tied by a thread and hanging on “By a Thread.”

Graciela Iturbide was born in Mexico City, Mexico (1942). Iturbide is a very well-known photographer whom I have only recently come to know about. Iturbide studied film in the early 70s with the intention of becoming a film director. She studied with Manuel Alvarez Brava, considered one of the most significant Latin American photographers of the 20^th century, and realized that photography was her medium. Iturbide is known for her stunning black and white images—often her subjects are people of Mexico’s indigenous cultures. She focuses on identity, daily life, rituals and the roles of women. There are often dead animals involved. Iturbide’s work has been termed “anthropoetic” by critic Oscar C. Nates. Her work is magnificent. Below is one of her “self-portraits

Graciela Iturbide, Eyes to Fly with? Coyoacan, 1991

Ana Mendieta was born in Havana, Cuba (1948-1985). Ana Mendieta is a mythic and influential figure in contemporary women’s art. Controversy still surrounds Mendieta’s tragic death at 36 years old as she fell 34 stories out of her NYC apartment window with her husband sculptor Carl Andre nearby. Mendieta grew up in Cuba in a wealthy family and after the revolution in 1960 her family sent Ana (aged 12) and her older sister (age 15) to the US—a traumatic dislocation that Mendieta suffered early on. Mendieta’s “earth-body” works from the 70s and early 80s have influenced countless artists. Mendieta stated in 1981: “I have been carrying out a dialogue between the landscape and the female body (based on my own silhouette). I believe this has been a direct result of my having been torn from my homeland (Cuba) during my adolescence. I am overwhelmed by the feeling of having been cast from the womb (nature). My art is the way I re-establish the bonds that unite me to the universe. It is a return to the maternal source.”

Anna Mendieta, Untitled (Blood and Feathers / Sangue e plume),1974

Carrie Mae Weems was born in Portland, Oregon USA (1953). Carrie Mae Weems is a profoundly influential artist—working as a photographer, as a performance artist with text and spoken word and with video since the early 80s. Weems is often the subject of her photographic works especially in her earlier works. No matter whom is the subject of the work; Weems draws us into the picture, always questioning. Here is a quote from Weems as spoken to Dawoud Bey: “… from the very beginning, I’ve been interested in the idea of power and the consequences of power; relationships are made and articulated through power. Another thing that’s interesting about the early work is that even though I’ve been engaged in the idea of autobiography, other ideas have been more important: the role of narrative, the social levels of humor, the deconstruction of documentary, the construction of history, the use of text, storytelling, performance, and the role of memory have all been more central to my thinking than autobiography.” I love her work and this work below particularly.

Carrie Mae Weems, Portrait of a woman who has fallen from grace, 1987

Nan Goldin was born in Washington D.C. USA (1953). Everybody knows something about the work of remarkable photographer Nan Goldin . . . I continue to love her portraiture work, from the beginnings to the present day—Goldin has photographed friends and lovers, herself, LGBT bodies, sexual and intimate encounters, battered bodies (including her own), beautiful sad and transitory moments. Her late 70s early 80s project “The Ballad of Sexual Dependency” is still heralded today. In her seemingly effortless images, Goldin manages to capture the supernal qualities of her subjects. And now Goldin (a recovering opioid addict herself) battles the opioid epidemic with her organization P.A.I.N.

Nan Goldin, Rise and Monty Kissing (from the Ballad of Sexual Dependency), 1980

Sophie Calle was born in Paris, France (1953). Calle is an ultimately cool and smart conceptual artist; photographer, installation artist, writer and prolific book artist. Calle constructs seductive narratives (mysteries, diaries, love letters) with text and image. Though we never quite believe the story, we are always draw into her fictive spell. Here is the text/story that goes with the image “Room with a View” which I am showing below:

“Some nights you can’t put into words. I spent the night of October 5, 2002 in a room set up for me at the top of the Eiffel Tower. In bed. Between white sheets, listening to the strangers who took turns at my bedside. Tell me a story so that I don’t fall asleep. Maximum length: 5 minutes. Longer if thrilling. No story, no visit. If your story sends me to sleep, please leave quickly and ask the guard to wake me… Hundreds turned up. Some nights you can’t describe. I came back down in the early morning. A message was flashing on each pillar: Sophie Calle, end of sleepless night, 7 :00 a.m. As if to confirm that I hadn’t dreamt it all. I asked for the moon and I got it: I SLEPT AT THE TOP OF THE EIFFEL TOWER. Since then, I keep an eye out for it, and if I glimpse it along some street, I say hello. Give it a fond look. Up there, 1,014 feet above ground, it’s a bit like home.”

Cindy Sherman was born in Glenridge, New Jersey USA (1954). Who doesn’t know about Cindy Sherman? —her photographic self-portraits (late 1970s to 2020s) where she transforms herself into myriad guises are amazing. Though she is my age contemporary and a kind of conceptual colleague, I have always steered clear of Cindy Sherman, I am not quite sure why. Of course, her skills in identity camouflage, masquerade and performative “self-portraiture” and her conceptual references to art history, feminine identity, not to mention her photographic skills are astounding. Still, I am not quite a fan girl. However, her early “Untitled Film Stills” from the 70s and early 80s where she recreates herself into various anonymous women of film are my favorites in the Cindy Sherman genre. And I think it is time for me to re-examine Sherman, after all.

Cindy Sherman, Untitled Film Still # 6, 1977

Shirin Neshat was born in Qazvin, Iran (1957). Shirin Neshat is known for her remarkable work in film, video and photography. Neshat was raised in Iran in a wealthy Muslim family, her father a doctor and her mother a homemaker. She learned traditional Muslim religious values through her maternal grandparents. She also attended Catholic boarding school in Tehran. Her family encouraged her education and worldliness—Neshat left Iran in 1975 to study at U.C. Berkeley where she received her BA, MA and MFA. She remained in the US and her serious and multi-faceted art practice began in the 90s with “The Women of Allah” series. In this work she overlays portraits of Muslim women with handwritten Persian calligraphy, (sometimes inserting a gun in the picture as well). “The Women of Allah” and other work from this period examines notions of femininity in relationship to the Islamic fundamentalism that came to the fore with the Iranian Revolution of 1979. Neshat is also a prolific and award-winning filmmaker; “Turbulent” (1998), “Rapture” (1999) and “Women Without Men” (2004) have won her multiple awards. Neshat is also a critic in the photography department at Yale University. I have always admired her work and I want to learn more!

Shirin Neshat, Rebellious Silence (from The Women of Allah Series), 1994

Francesca Woodman was born in Denver, Colorado USA (1958 – 1981). Woodman is another heralded figure in the history of women artists. Tragedy and mythos surround her work—she was a prolific young artist who committed suicide at age 22. She is my contemporary, born three years after me and we were both living in Boulder, Colorado in our teenage years. She went on to attend the Rhode Island School of Design. I knew her parents, artists Betty and George Woodman, who both taught at the University of Colorado where I went to art school when I was older and had children of my own. Anyway, in her short life Francesca was a remarkably productive and talented soul— her black and white self-portraits are dreamlike, stunning, melancholic and evocative. The work has influenced generations of young women photographers. Perhaps because I have entered this arena of “self-imaging” at this late stage in my art life, I have come to look at Francesca’s work with fresh (but older) eyes—there is much to be seen in her remarkable body of works. I wrote about Francesca’s work on my blog post: https://sherrywigginsblog.com/2019/03/29/another-heroine-francesca-woodman-posted-in-boulder-co-march-28-2019/

Francesca Woodman, From the Eel Series Venice, 1977-1978

Laura Aguilar was born in San Gabriel, California USA (1959 – 2018). I have only recently learned about Laura Aguilar’s remarkable body of photographic work. Aguilar was the daughter of a first generation Mexican-American father and her mother is of mixed Mexican and Irish heritage, she was also born with auditory dyslexia and was a lesbian. Her self-portraiture focuses on her own identity as a differently abled Chicana lesbian who was obese as well. She also created a large body of works/portraits within the gay and lesbian and black and brown communities that she was a part of in California. Her self-portraiture work in the landscape is remarkable, subtle and beautiful. Charlene Villasenor Black, a professor at UCLA said: “[Aguilar] challenges the idea of the female nude—one of the most important genres in Western art—as the passive object of the male gaze. It’s very clear that she’s aware of the tradition, and she’s able to repeat certain elements from the canon in such a way that shows us how unstable that meaning is and to question these essentialized ideas about women.” Link: https://www.artnews.com/feature/laura-aguilar-who-is-she-1202684828/ Aguilar died in 2018 at the age of 58 from complications related to diabetes.

Looking at these remarkable women artists work is an important part of my art practice and I hope to continue to work “on their shoulders” in the coming months, possibly years in my own performative photographic work. Hugs . . .

Sherry Wiggins / Me, On Their Shoulders (In my studio), 2021

imaging and imagining selves – another beginning, posted in Boulder, CO June 21, 2021

Self Portrait, Claude Cahun, 1927

The two color images above are a few of the images that I shot early in the morning last week near Maroon Lake in Aspen, Colorado. The black and white “Buddha” image of French artist Claude Cahun’s (1894-1954) is one of my favorite images and I would like to recreate this image sometime. I have been carrying this silver fabric around and last week I found this beautiful grey rock that called to me like a Buddha rock or enlightenment rock.

I was attending a photography workshop at Anderson Ranch Arts Center in Snowmass Colorado taught by the remarkable photographer and artist Jess Dugan. The course was titled “The Intimate Portrait.” I decided to take this class to push myself to learn to take pictures of myself / self images / self-portraits. I have very little training in photography, so this is a big challenge for me.

I had asked my dear friend and fabulous artist and photographer Sama Alshaibi for advice on equipment and I bought a camera and lens that I can use primarily to take images and portraits of myself. I purchased a Sony a7iii mirrorless camera and a Zeiss F1.8 lens. The technology of this camera is a bit overwhelming and last week I just plunged forward with lots of support from Jess and my classmates at Anderson Ranch.

One piece of advice that Jess repeated to all of us was to just slow down and work whatever situation you have set-up for yourself and your subject (my subject being me). On the first day I chose the horizontal wood wall under the porch on the back side of the main building at Anderson Ranch to shoot myself in front of.

These seem like very simple images, but learning to manage the tripod, the auto-focus, depth of field, self-timer, the remote and also just getting comfortable with my face, my gaze, gesture—this has been no easy task for me. I also shot myself over and over in my hotel room.

I modeled for one of the talented photographers/ artists in the workshop, Kevin Gochez. Kevin asked me if I would model nude in my hotel room for them. They are working on a series of portraits in hotel rooms with various people. The image below is one of the several beautiful images that Kevin took. I am in awe and I want to learn about light next . . . Kevin and I traded prints—they gave me this print below and I gave them the print of my face coming out of the Buddha/enlightenment rock.

“Sherry” (Snow Village, CO), Kevin Gochez, 2021

I have recently become aware of American photographer Anne Noggle’s work (1922 – 2005). Her frank, funny, sad, joyful black and white portraits and portrayals of herself and her own aging process, as well as her portraits of other older women, are remarkable. I decided to try to reproduce one of Noggle’s self-portraits “A Rose is A Rose is A Rose.” It was a humbling exercise for me that I consciously chose. The technicalities of this kind of close up image were difficult for me. It was also an exploration of vanity and beauty —exposing my skin, my wrinkles . . . Obviously this is part of the process of self-imaging a 65-year-old woman. What am I willing to reveal, what am I not willing to reveal? Noggle was 63 when she took this image.

A Rose is A Rose is A Rose, Anne Noggle, 1985

This was a life and art altering week for me. I have been in a bit of a creative lull since the completion of the book and the exhibition THE UNKNOWN HEROINE. Jess Dugan is an amazing teacher as well as artist and human being. They create a learning atmosphere that brings out the best in everyone. I have been trying to get going on to the next major body of work. I want to research and embody all of Claude Cahun’s Heroines (there are 14 in Cahun’s text including: Eve, Judith, Salome, Sappho, Cinderella . . . ). This will be a continuation of my research into feminist history, representation and identity. My collaborator for the last several years, photographer Luis Branco, is in Portugal and we do plan on working together this fall at the OBRAS Artist Residency on multiple projects. We have a large show of our collaborative work “The Mirror Between Us” rescheduled because of the pandemic for the spring of 2022 in Evora, Portugal. I love working with Luis and I want to continue to work in Europe. Jess suggested that a personal practice of self-portraiture could run parallel to my more long-term conceptual and collaborative projects. I am really excited, I love my new camera and I want to get more proficient with it. And I can learn to take pictures of my selves in whatever forms / identities / personas I wish to try in my studio in my home in the yard – wherever.

This last image of Anne Noggle’s is titled “Stellar by Starlight No. 2” and it expresses something that I feel; a sense of joy, of humour, a freedom, a challenge to image and imagine my/our many selves and indentities… and I must get a tiara soon!! Happy Summer Solstice!!

Stellar by Starlight No. 2, Anne Noggle, 1985

Artists Book Heroines Performance Art The Unknown Heroine

the limited edition artists’ book – THE UNKNOWN HEROINE, posted in Boulder, CO, April 22, 2021

THE UNKNOWN HEROINE is a 64-page limited edition artists’ book made by conceptual artist Sherry Wiggins in collaboration with photographer Luís Filipe Branco and curator and writer Cydney Payton. The book is comprised of text and images that are based on Wiggins’ interaction with French photographer and writer Claude Cahun’s essay “THE ESSENTIAL WIFE or the the Unknown Princess.” The book includes this essay by Claude Cahun as well as an essay by Cydney Payton. You can download Payton’s essay below. The book was designed by Joseph Logan.

PROLOGUE FOR C.C. – Sherry Wiggins

I am writing to you, C.C., about what happened in The House.

The House, named Grunfoort after a castle that disappeared long ago, was strange at first. It was beautiful, old-fashioned. White tulips grew in the garden. Aren’t they a symbol of loss? I saw them for their other meaning—regeneration.

Persephone called to me. Or was it Demeter? Daughter or mother? This always confuses me.

I brought your Heroines* with me. The stories (allegories, parables) are so good, so complicated, filled with references to history, to the Bible, to literature, mythology, fairytales, and they are so wickedly feminist and modern: EVE THE TOO CREDULOUS, Penelope the Irresolute, HELEN THE REBEL, SAPPHO THE MISUNDERSTOOD, SALOME THE SKEPTIC, BEAUTY (OR THE TASTE FOR THE BEAST), THE ESSENTIAL WIFE or the the Unknown Princess, THE ANDROGYNE and the rest. I want to make all of your Heroines my own.

As I delved into the tale of “THE ESSENTIAL WIFE or the the Unknown Princess,” allusion by allusion, I understood that, though the story is yours, this is really my story. And though you tell the story well, I have lived this story. I also realized that The House was the perfect setting for the tale, a perfect abode for both THE WIFE and the the Princess.

That’s how it all began—the embodiment, this practice, this theatre—with me enacting the story—your version, my version, our version, in The House.

I took my role as THE ESSENTIAL WIFE quite seriously, and the the Unknown Princess emerged as well. I dressed in black. I pulled my hair back severely. Lots of makeup—Chanel and more. Was it a parody, a performance or truth? The truth, is an older woman looks better with makeup, not too much.

I am no actress. I have become a performance artist. Who knew? Maybe you knew, C.C.; you did all that theatre in Paris in the twenties. I love those images of you as The Devil, The Buddha, The Dandy, The Maiden. Identity is a fluid subject, but you already know that.

Day after day I performed quite well—almost not a performance— as THE ESSENTIAL (House) WIFE. What drudgery! What fun! Well, the the Unknown Princess certainly appeared too. It was all somewhat exhausting: the cooking, the cleaning, the play acting. I needed lots of cigarettes in the garden.

That last morning, while putting on makeup, eyeliner, red lipstick in the upstairs bathroom, standing there in my tights and Spanish socks, I thought, Why not? I went to the banister and posed. What do you think, C.C? Am I THE ANDROGYNE?

Still performing, I put on my robe and went into The Study, the most beautiful room in The House. The windows, the light . . .

What do you think, C.C.? What is a Masterpiece anyway? Masterpiece or not—who decides?

* Claude Cahun, “Heroines,” translated Norman MacAfee, in Inverted Odysseys: Claude Cahun, Maya Deren, Cindy Sherman, ed. Shelley Rice (Cambridge, MA: The MIT Press, 1999), 43 – 94.

You can download the pdf of Cydney Payton’s essay “A Room of One’s Own” below:

sw_unknown-heroine_10-payton_hi-res Download

All 19 performative photographs in the book were made in collaboration with Luís Filipe Branco. All 19 images are also available as limited edition archival digital prints.

All photographs of the book were made by Robert Kittila.

Please contact me if you would like to receive a copy of the book.

Claude Cahun

A brief biography of Claude Cahun – posted in Boulder, CO, April 22, 2021

Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, Untitled ( I am in training don’t kiss me), 1927, gelatin silver print ,4 5/8 x 3 ½ inches, Jersey Heritage Collection.

For many of us, French artist Claude Cahun has materialized as a kind of queer superheroine. Cahun first appeared on the world art stage in the early 1990s, nearly forty years after their death, when French scholar François Leperlier introduced Claude Cahun’s written and photographic work in the monograph Claude Cahun: l’écart et la métamorphose. Since this introduction, Cahun has been well examined, republished and widely exhibited. Today, the artist Claude Cahun is lauded as a feminist, performance artist, photographer and Surrealist writer.

Claude Cahun was born Lucy Renee Mathilde Schwob in Nantes, France in 1894. Early in life Schwob identified as androgynous, resisting a gendered life. As a teenager, Lucy met Suzanne Malherbe; they became best friends and would later become life partners. Lucy’s father married Suzanne’s mother, making them stepsiblings as well. By the end of World War I, Schowb identified as Claude Cahun and Malherbe as Marcel Moore. The pair moved to Paris in the early 1920s. Cahun came to be well regarded as a writer, performer and artist even within male-dominated Surrealist circles; Moore was equally acknowledged for their original drawings and illustrations.

Cahun was a prolific writer. Two of their most significant literary works are Héroïnes and Aveux Non Avenus. Héroïnes (Heroines) was first published in 1925 as a series of fifteen short stories and monologues. It remains a radical text that deconstructs gender roles and stereotypes in Western literature with such figures as Cinderella, Salome, Eve, Sappho and Androgyne. Aveux Non Avenus (DISAVOWALS), first published in 1930 as a limited edition artists’ book, takes the form of a literary montage: a compilation of dreams, stories, poems and philosophical musings. In this complex work, Cahun approaches some of their favorite subjects, including love, narcissism, gender and androgyny. Each of the nine chapters begins with a unique photomontage made by Cahun and Moore.

Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, photomontage for the book Aveux non Avenus, 1930, original size for publication,8 7/16 x 6 ½ inches, San Francisco Museum of Modern Art Library.

Throughout the many years Cahun and Moore spent together, it is almost certain that Moore was behind the lens— shooting most of the exceptional black and white portraits that Cahun inhabited. These images appear to us as intimate explorations of identity, gender and selfhood. Until the late twentieth century, these groundbreaking photographs remained in relative obscurity, with the exception of their use by Moore and Cahun in the elaborate photomontages produced for the book Aveux Non Avenus.

118mm x 94mm (whole) 107mm x 82mm (image) also neg

Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore, Untitled (reflected in the mirror), c.1928, Jersey Heritage Collection.

THE UNKNOWN HEROINE project is a modern retelling or interpretation of Cahun’s essay “THE ESSENTIAL WIFE or the the Unknown Princess” (one of the fifteen essays in Heroines). The resulting performative photographs can be viewed as a tribute to the work of Claude Cahun and Marcel Moore and to their collaboration.

Please read my blog post about “the limited edition artists’ book-THE UNKNOWN HEROINE, posted April 22, 2021