Méret Oppenheim
Today we honor Méret Oppenheim (1913-1985), a Surrealist sculptor and painter celebrated as an innovative thinker and visionary. Oppenheim grew up in Switzerland in a progressive, intellectual family — in particular, her father was a psychoanalyst and recommended that Oppenheim record her dreams. According to psychoanalytic theory, our dreams provide insight into the unconscious. Her dream images inspired her earliest paintings in 1931, among them Wurgeengel (an angel strangling an infant) and Suicides' Institute (a boy receives instruction on how to hang himself).
At 18, Oppenheim went to study art in Paris, where she befriended members of the Surrealist circle, including May Ray, Andre Breton, Marcel Duchamp, and Max Ernst. Women were regarded mainly as the subjects and muses of the men who dominated Surrealism, so it is notable that Oppenheim made a place for herself as one of Surrealism's central artists and produced some of its most potent works.
Méret Oppenheim, Object. Paris, 1936. Chinese Gazelle fur-lined teacup, saucer, and spoon, © 2021 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / Pro Litteris, Zurich
The artist possessed a wry wit and was keenly aware of how women were regarded by both the Surrealists and society. Suffused with humor, eroticism, and menacing darkness, her work reflected her critical explorations of female sexuality, identity, and exploitation. Oppenheim became known for her assemblages, sculptural works in which she brought mundane, often domestic, items into disturbing and humorous juxtaposition. For the Surrealists, such objects served to crack the veneer of civilized society, revealing the sexual, psychological, and emotional drives burning just beneath the surface.
Her most famous work—the result of a joking conversation with Pablo Picasso—is Object (Le Déjeuner en Fourrure) (1936), a teacup, saucer, and spoon covered in Chinese gazelle fur, creating an arresting meld of the domestic with the erotic.
Méret Oppenheim, X-ray of My Skull, 1964; printed 1981. X-ray of Méret Oppenheim’s skull and hand while wearing hoop earrings, a necklace, and rings on her ring & index finger, © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ProLitteris, Zürich
Although Oppenheim avoided women-only exhibitions, explaining: "there is no difference between man and woman: there is only artist or poet. Sex plays no role whatsoever. That is why I refuse to participate in exhibitions of women only," she influenced an entire generation of remarkable women artists. Her subversive Surrealist designs for Elsa Schiaparelli sparked endless imitations and spin-offs, from Tokio Kumagai's edible shoes to Lady Gaga's Meat Dress. She also inspired numerous works by Feminist artists of the 1960s and 70s.
In later interviews, she emphasized her rejection of the male gaze, "women are not goddesses, not fairies, not sphinxes. All these are the projections of men." Having addressed these fantasies directly in her work, and participated in others' fantasies about her, Oppenheim saw this as the chief task of the female artist: "to prove via one's lifestyle that one no longer regards as valid the taboos that have been used to keep women in a state of subjugation for thousands of years. Freedom is not given; one has to take it."
Méret Oppenheim, “Glove,” 1985 (for Parkett 4). A pair of gloves made of goat suede with silk-screen and hand stitched veins, © Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ProLitteris, Zürich
Judy Chicago's Dinner Party lifts ideas from Oppenheim and presents them on a grander scale. It is almost impossible to imagine Louise Bourgeois and later Eva Hesse's sculptures based on body parts without Oppenheim's earlier forays into this arena. Oppenheim's exploration of the body and landscape in works such as Stone Woman, or the body and food in Naked Banquet made impressions on Land Art, Earthworks, and Performance artists — especially Ana Mendieta, Carolee Schneemann, Yoko Ono, and Marina Abramovic, experimental artists who incorporated their bodies into their work.
Oppenheim died in 1985, at the age of 72.