Select a body of work produced in the context of Surrealism and analyse its structure, imagery and meanings, with reference to the context in which it was made and received.
Her delicate, dainty form of perfect feminine proportions crouches upon the pedestal she is displayed upon, as though intimidated by the sensual, overtly sexual guise of sumptuous and exotic Chinese Gazelles fur she has been caressed in. Her very being and everything she stands for has been juxtaposed by the outfit she wears. She is a lowly teacup, spoon and saucer cheaply bought in a department store, but elevated to the status of high art by her adornment in fur. Having leapt straight out of a bizarre dream and landed conveniently in the conscious mind of Meret Oppenheim, whilst she sat in a Parisian cafe in 1936 discussing her fur bracelets with Pablo Picasso and Dora Maar (The Museum of Modern Art, 2004) , the teacup she was inspired to wrap with fur by this encounter. Object (Le Déjeuner en Fourrure) so named by Andre Breton, the father of Surrealism, became an icon to the Surrealists. By offering an in depth analysis of the formal qualities of Oppenheim’s iconic cup and saucer this essay will show how Object, through its representation of the ordinary as the extraordinary, cannot be simply understood as a purely aesthetic, modernist piece. Ultimately divorcing Object from either the Surrealist movements or the female artist’s agendas, both of which it was born from, would remove any obvious meaning and message the piece offers.
Aesthetics which explore the weird and the fantastic have spanned the history of art, providing the Surrealists’ stylistic heritage. Hieronymus Bosch’s The Garden of Earthly Delights (c.1500) for example, presents a dream-like landscape of strange people and beasts in what appears to be a fetishist orgy, preceded Surrealism by over 400 years. The movement which is referred to as ‘Surrealism’ however, is an early 20th century avant-garde movement which developed out of Dada under the control of Andre Breton. In The First Manifesto of Surrealism Breton defines the movement as ‘pure psychic automatism by which it is intended to express, either verbally or in writing the real function of thought, in the absence of any control exercised by the reason and outside of all aesthetic and moral preoccupations’ (Breton 1924 cited in Murray & Murray, 1997, p. 511). Essentially it sought to solve the contradictory states of dream and reality by liberating subconscious desires, exploring the psychic and, ultimately ‘capture the true process of thought’ (Murray & Murray, 1997, p. 511) . The Surrealist agenda was born from the vogue of Sigmund Freud’s writings, the political turmoil of the interwar period and the Symbolist ideology of escape to a world beyond the material, which had preceded it.
Surrealism swallowed Oppenheim whole. She arrived in Paris at the age of only 18 after being raised in Germany and Switzerland to be befriended by many of the Surrealist artists and go on to be a central character of the movement. It was her acknowledgement of the importance of the object, in particular which brought her status and recognition within the group. The object was favoured as an art form as it exemplified the Surrealist agenda that the dream could become reality. The object functioned symbolically for the hidden sexual desires of the unconscious and, through its apparent mundane function, elevated the ordinary to the status of high art. It acted as a direct critique of bourgeois society and support for Marxism (Sweeny, 1988) . Oppenheim’s Object certainly upholds everything the Surrealist object was intended to portray. Its imagery destroys common conceptions of what a teacup should be to become a fanciful, quirky and extraordinary item- it literally looks as though it has fallen straight from a dream.
Oppenheim’s object was very well received by the Surrealists. They recognised the importance of the imagery of Object because of its contribution to the movement’s exploration of dreams becoming reality and it was very well received by the group. Man Ray photographed it in 1936 and ‘used photographic means to heighten the disjuncture’ (Fer, 1993, p. 176) between the ordinary teacup and its extraordinary appearance. He photographs the cup in a standard place setting from the angle it would ordinarily be viewed from if it were being used for its usual function. The way it has been lit however, intensifies the sensation of the fur as it accentuates each individual hair, portraying the pieces oppositional parts.
It is this bizarre, dreamlike imagery of Object which allows it to act as a symbol of the unconscious. The writings of Sigmund Freud which were published in the same period as the Surrealists were operating, undoubtedly influenced the way their art was read. In Object the spoon, cup and saucer, usually found in a smooth, palatable silver or china, have been wrapped in fur, thus altering the meaning of the object and giving it as sexual aspect. According to Freud, fur has the sexual connotation of ‘pubic hair, which should have been followed by the longed-for sight of the female member’ (Freud, Fetishism, p. 354 cited in Fer, 1993, p. 224). The association of pubic hair with the fur in Object, combined with the ordinary association of a teacup with the action of drinking, therefore invites the audience to imagine oral sex; a hugely taboo subject in the 1930’s. It was possibly for this reason that when exhibited Object caused ‘tension and excitement... expressed in rage laughter, disgust or delight’(Barr, MoMA, 1937 cited in Kelly, 2001, p. 81).
“The division of mental life into what is conscious and what is unconscious is the fundamental premise on which psycho-analysis is based” (Freud, 1935, p. 8) . To Freud differentiating between the different levels of the mind was essential to uncovering unconscious thought. This idea spoke to the Surrealists. Breton himself described the movement as ‘preoccupied’ by the prospect of psychoanalysis. It seems Oppenheim was also concerned with the unconscious mind and allowed that curiosity to prevail through her work. In Object she confuses the conscious mind’s ideas of what a teacup is with the unconscious mind’s sexual connotations with the fur it is wrapped in. She asked her audience to address her work in a sexual manner, forcing them to bring their animal instinct into their conscious mind whilst in the public arena of the art gallery. Whilst this alone caused embarrassment and upset to those who viewed Object, the feelings were worsened by the fact she had requested their lust be directed to a teacup. She uses the psychological connotations between fur and sex to coerce the audience into an awkward sphere of uncertainty surrounding their own feelings.
The idea that within the Surrealist group ‘woman was made the object of desire, who also stood as a sign for desire’ (1993, p. 176) was regularly explored and something Oppenheim was readily aware of, having posed in 1933 for Man Ray’s photograph Veiled Erotic, Meret Oppenheim at the Press, where she was made the object of this desire. Object can be interpreted as Oppenheim’s quiet subversion of this Surrealist endeavour, if read from a feminist perspective. It would seem that despite Oppenheim’s importance as an artist within the realms of Surrealism, she could not escape the fact she was one of the few women to be involved. Women in Paris in the 1930’s, whilst more liberated than in previous years did not have the right to vote and still suffered prejudice which lasted from the age of prostitution, showgirls and the Moulin Rouge. It is quite obvious then, that Object was intended to question the patriarchal restraints Oppenheim felt from both the society and the company she lived in; the associated unconscious confusion the overall imagery of the object was intended for the male audience.
Oppenheim’s process of wrapping, can also be seen as the process of disguise, further critiquing the sexist French society. Covering the teacup provokes its audience to question what lies underneath; the surface value is ignored and the thing objectified in favour of the inquisitive minds need to explore. This draws parallels with the way men seek to follow their sexual desires and ‘unwrap’ women. Oppenheim demonstrates this parallel further by shrewdly inviting this way of observing her piece as she has wrapped the teacup in a sumptuous, sexual fabric. Whilst the teacup may have been received as ‘erotically charged’ (Barnes, et al., 1999, p. 351) it is still a teacup, a mere object, which almost makes a mockery of the way men gave it the same gaze as they did women. Oppenheim uses the juxtaposition of the sexual and the mundane to attack the masculine society of the time.
Further to this Object, in correct artistic terminology can only be described as a sculpture, which is essentially a masculine entity. Sculptures are traditionally crafted by men in robust, solid and essentially masculine materials, both are rules which Oppenheim and her furry teacup completely destroy.
‘That art is a reflection of society may be difficult to document, but it is undeniable that the Surrealist movement grew out of the ruins of a world shattered by war’ (Lewis, 1990, p. 1) . Whilst the Surrealist movement primarily dealt with liberation of the human mind, the artists were haunted by their experience of the war and so came to deal with political and social revolution. The Surrealists ‘joined the French Communist Party and worked in its organisations from 1927- 1935’ (Lewis, 1990, p. x) and showed an increasing commitment to the party over that period. It may seem strange then that the teacup and fur were, at the time Oppenheim constructed Object, both symbols of the French aristocracy. However, rather than support bourgeois values, Object forcibly rejects them. By combining these two items associated with the wealthy to create an obscure and irrational object, Oppenheim astutely disparages these expensive items. Soon after its construction Object was shown at the highly acclaimed and essentially modern Museum of Modern Art, New York. This took the communist aspect of the piece even further, as a shop bought tea cup, an object of the proletariat, was exhibited alongside high art. This demoted the leisure and lifestyles of the bourgeoisie who would visit the museum, to a level equal to the working class. In the same exhibit Object took the communist ideals of the Surrealist movement into the Museum of Modern Art; it almost suggested that to be modern, one must be communist and therefore firmly supported the Communist Party.
The surreal aesthetic, whilst traceable throughout history, is most notably found outside of Surrealism in Symbolist art. This movement developed almost as a cult in late 19th century Paris. Symbolists were very concerned with escape to a world beyond that of meanings and representations to an ideal, other world. Its members, particularly Guimard’s Metro station entrances’ transformed the appearance of Paris and invited people, quite literally into another world. This would not have gone unnoticed by the Surrealists and certainly seemed to influence their interest in the dream and the other worlds of the unconscious. Particularly in the post war world Surrealists were eager to promote escape: something true of Oppenheim’s Object. It is however, the theories of Sigmund Freud and Oppenheim’s oppression as a woman which set the context for her creation of Object. Through her combination of two unrelated items she creates an oppositional piece which stands up as an icon of Surrealism. Its structure, a teacup wrapped in fur, fulfils the Surrealist agenda to bring the unconscious into the realms of the conscious, whilst attacking the corruption of society, for which they blamed capitalism. Oppenheim also subverts the male dominance of her society by using Freudian theories to dominate the sexual desires of her audience. Overall the political and social context in which Object was made and received ultimately directed its obscure imagery and structure, but it was this very imagery and structure which exemplified Surrealism and readdressed the socio-politics from which it was born.
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Appendices
1. Oppenheim, Meret. Object (Le Déjeuner en Fourrure. 1936
2. Bosch, Hieronymus. The Garden of Earthly Delights. c.1500
3. Man Ray. Veiled Erotic, Meret Oppenheim at the Press. 1933
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