Photocollage N° 34 1967

Marcelle Cahn made this photocollage, number 34, from cut-up photos and paper. It reflects the interwar search for a universal visual language based on geometric form. Cahn was part of a generation of artists working across Europe, and particularly in France, who sought to make art answerable to the new conditions of modern life. Note how the collage combines pure abstraction, in the floating circles and triangles, with a photographic fragment: a directory of Parisian businesses. This contrast gives the artwork its tension. It reminds us that abstract art must, in some way, be grounded in lived experience. Cahn was loosely associated with the Cercle et Carré group and other avant-garde movements which sought to test the social function of art. In the context of the interwar years, these artists hoped that abstract art might offer an alternative to both academic traditionalism and the rise of politically motivated figurative styles. To understand this work fully, we need to examine the journals, exhibition catalogs, and other printed matter that circulated among Cahn's artistic circle. These archival materials help us to situate her work in its historical context.