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The Arts Intel Report

A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler
A Cultural Compass
For the World Traveler

Meret Oppenheim: Für Dich—Wider Dich

Apr 21 – Sept 5, 2021
De Mortel 4, 5211 HV 's-Hertogenbosch, Netherlands

The Swiss artist Meret Oppenheim was a woman of contradictions. She moved to Paris when she was 18, and quickly found a place in the Surrealist circle. In 1933, she posed nude for Man Ray’s photograph Erotique voilée, becoming something of a sensation. Her fur-lined cup and saucer of 1936 is a Dada masterpiece. Yet fame didn’t sit well with Oppenheim, and she resented being associated with feminism. In the late 1930s she withdrew from art and public life, not to re-emerge until the mid 50s, a reblossoming. This exhibition looks at both her embattled personality and her mesmerizing art. —E.C.

Man Ray, “Érotique Voilée,” 1933 © Pictoright Amsterdam, 2021.