Less than Playful: Hans Bellmer's Doll Photographs as Archive and Artwork

Abstract

Throughout his career, Hans Bellmer (1902–1975) made photography central to his artistic practice. Among the most notable of Bellmer's photographs are those of his Dolls, sculptural works often placed in elaborate settings to convey narrative intent. While the photographs of the first Doll are mostly archival in nature, those attendant to the second Doll function as artworks in their own right, transcending documentary purposes. The narratives conjured in Bellmer's work are frequently menacing or threatening, alluding to sexual violence and child abuse. While recent scholarship acknowledges the troubling aspects of Bellmer's images, its authors commonly excuse their disquieting effects as a sort of necessary evil, which allowed the artist to expand aesthetic and even erotic borders. Focusing on the decidedly female and clearly youthful status of the Dolls, I argue in this article that Bellmer's art is inherently misogynistic, evidencing pedophilic impulses and a desire to distort and dismember the female body and its representations, as witnessed in the photographs.