![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() In 1971, Linda Nochlin shook up the art world when she proposed the question, why had there been ‘no great women artists?’ On viewing Phantoms of Surrealism at Whitechapel Gallery fifty years later, I asked myself not why there had been no great Surrealist women artists, but why have these fascinating women been so rarely exhibited by Whitechapel Gallery and other museums? Although the exhibition provides the opportunity to learn about these artists, it does not match the radicality of its subjects, ranging from Sheila Legge, whose eccentric performance as the Surrealist ‘phantom’ acts as the entry point to the exhibition, to Claude Cahun, who not only documented Legge’s performance but also questioned gender and sexuality in images far ahead of their time. ![]()
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