162FOLLOWING MATERIALITYPicasso exclaimed that “anything could be covered in fur!” which prompted
Oppenheim’s response: “Even this cup and saucer!”^1 Object, as the cup
and saucer covered in Chinese gazelle fur was titled (fig. 5.1), has since be-
come, for obvious reasons, the quintessential surrealist object—it has paved
the way for many other everyday objects-made-strange; it is a textbook
incarnation of the Freudian uncanny; it flirts with a subtle notion of ab-
jection; it overlaps multiple consumptive desires; it inscribes and chal-
lenges gender prescriptions; it spells out fetish; and it alludes to, but never
solves, a multitude of contradictions.
The hermeticism of its title, along with its iconic yet diminutive stat-
ure, has turned the work into a magnet for symbolic readings. Yet, for all
the interest this art object has generated, it remains nearly impossible to
find a text that does it justice beyond the clichés of surrealist interpreta-
tion. All surrealist objects are regularly reduced by the popular culture
appeal that sexual allusion fulfills—this constitutes a highly anthropo-
centric and gendered perspective on the works. Without disavowing the
FIGURE 5.1 Meret Oppenheim, Object, 1936, Paris. Fur-covered cup, saucer, and
spoon. The Museum of Modern Art, New York. © ARS, New York.