Trans/genus. Genre- und Genderüberwindung im Werk Meret Oppenheims nach 1954

According to the popular narrative, Meret Oppenheim is considered the Surrealists’ muse and model or the woman who inspired and spurred them on to their creative achievements. Undoubtedly, the fur-covered cup (Le déjeuner en fourrure, 1936) and the portraits of Man Ray are the works that anchor Oppenheim as an icon in the collective memory to this day. However, she found the “thousands of years of discrimination against women” to be a burdensome “feeling of inferiority”. After the sudden end of her crisis in 1954, her liberating metamorphosis from personal and creative rigidity unfolds in an intermedial practice that deserves closer examination. For Oppenheim, genre transgression as an act of artistic emancipation is combined with the negation of the gender dichotomy as basic operation. On the one hand, the artist tries to remain neutral above the gender barriers and thus also above the battle line of feminism and patriarchy. On the other hand, her unorthodox thought process reinforces the possibility of men’s self-emancipation.