Inverted odysseys
Subtitle: Claude Cahun, Maya Deren, and Cindy Sherman
By: edited by Shelley Rice ; with contributions by Lynn Gumpert ... [et al.] ; also including "Heroines," a fictional text by Claude Cahun, translated by Norman MacAfee.
Contributors: Rice, Shelley.; Gumpert, Lynn.; Grey Art Gallery & Study Center.; Museum of Contemporary Art (North Miami, Fla.)
Publisher: MIT Press
Published: 1999
Place of publication: Cambridge, Mass
Language: eng
Number of pages: 168
Subjects: Cahun, Claude, -- 1894-1954 -- Exhibitions; Deren, Maya -- Exhibitions; Sherman, Cindy -- Exhibitions; Photography, Artistic -- Exhibitions
Genres: Exhibitions.
Description: "Claude Cahun, Maya Deren, and Cindy Sherman were born in different countries, in different generations - Cahun in France in 1894, Deren in Russia in 1917, and Sherman in the United States in 1954. Yet they share a deeply theatrical obsession that shatters any notion of a unified self.

All three try out identities from different social classes and geographic environments, extend their temporal range into the past and future, and transform themselves into heroes and villains, mythological creatures, and sex goddesses. The premise of Inverted Odysseys is that this expanded concept of the self - this playful urge to "try on" other roles - is more than a feminist or psychological issue. It is central to our global culture, to our definition of human identity in a world where the individual exists in a multicultural and multemporal environment.

This book is an "odyssey" through historical, theoretical, critical, and literary perspectives on the three artists viewed in the context of these issues."--BOOK JACKET.
Notes: Title page contains miror image title.

Published in conjunction with an exhibition held at the New York University Grey Art Gallery, Nov. 1999-Jan. 2000 and the Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami, Spring, 2000.

Includes bibliographical references and index.
Table of contents: title: Inverted odysseys / by Shelley Rice; title: Scattering selves / by Lucy R. Lippard; title: Claude Cahun's "Heroines" / translated by Norman MacAfee; title: The equivocal "I" : Claude Cahun as lesbian subject / by Abigail Solomon-Godeau; title: A few notes on Maya Deren / by Jonas Mekas; title: Cindy Sherman : an invention for two voices / by Ted Mooney; title: Artists' biographies / by Erin Donnelly.