Nadja

Shannon Bool Canadian
2014
Not on view
Bool works at the intersection of historical research, design, and psychology (the latter from her training as an art educator). In Nadja the artist collaged together imagery from two distinct historical and cultural sources. First, Bool appropriated a 1925 photograph showing the debut of a new, modernist-inflected mannequin at the Decorative Arts exposition in Paris. On top of this streamlined Döppelganger, she collaged the repeated motif of a fruit bat from the ceiling of a Kwoma ceremonial house in Papua, New Guinea (located in our Gallery 354)—a sacred space for men’s initiation rites where women were not allowed. In titling the work after the elusive protagonist of André Breton’s 1925 Surrealist novella, Bool incisively wed disparate though parallel images about women as a surface for psychological projection into a fragmented whole with great power and mystery.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Nadja
  • Artist: Shannon Bool (Canadian, born 1972)
  • Date: 2014
  • Medium: Gelatin silver print
  • Dimensions: Image: 44 × 27 in. (111.8 × 68.6 cm)
    Frame: 44 3/4 × 27 1/2 in. (113.7 × 69.9 cm)
  • Classification: Photographs
  • Credit Line: Purchase, Vital Projects Fund Inc. Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 2015
  • Object Number: 2015.448
  • Rights and Reproduction: © Shannon Bool
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs

More Artwork

Research Resources

The Met provides unparalleled resources for research and welcomes an international community of students and scholars. The Met's Open Access API is where creators and researchers can connect to the The Met collection. Open Access data and public domain images are available for unrestricted commercial and noncommercial use without permission or fee.

To request images under copyright and other restrictions, please use this Image Request form.

Feedback

We continue to research and examine historical and cultural context for objects in The Met collection. If you have comments or questions about this object record, please complete and submit this form. The Museum looks forward to receiving your comments.