La Poupée (The Doll), Hans Bellmer

Archive Label 2003:
In 1933, Hans Bellmer announced that he would cease all productive activity in protest of the Nazi regime. He then created images so shocking to traditional tastes they would never be appropriated for use by the new government. He produced La poupée under the shadow of Nazi violence, but its roots reached back to the artist’s own emotional past. This silver print was included in a book of 10 photographs of doll parts in various permutations, with an introduction by the artist explaining how innocent games of childhood had led to sophisticated, adult sexual fantasies. With its fearful capacity to bend and recombine with other parts, Bellmer pushed the doll to be as elastic as the mind, to contemplate the impossible possibilities of the imagination.

In 1938, Bellmer moved from his homeland to Paris to join the French Surrealists, who readily adopted the intense artist. After the war, he concentrated on delicate drawings such as the girl and matchbox. Bellmer returned to Berlin temporarily in 1953, but then returned to Paris for the remainder of his life.

Archive Label:
“La Poupée” (French for “the doll”) is the name Bellmer gave to the small manikin with articulated joints that he had built and then photographed in various poses. Bellmer’s photograph produces a female form that is without life, essence, or soul, but which is subject to a constant repositioning within the male narrative of fantasy. In this way Bellmer makes literal the objectification of the female body that is produced by the male gaze.