Cahun made work for themself and did not want to be famous. It wasn't until 40 years after their death that Cahun's work became recognized. In many ways, Cahun's life was marked by a sense of role reversal, and like many early queer pioneers, their public identity became a commentary upon the public's notions of sexuality, gender, beauty, and logic. Their adoption of a gender neutral name and their androgynous self-portraits display a revolutionary way of thinking and creating, experimenting with the audience's understanding of photography as a documentation of reality. Their poetry challenged gender roles and attacked the increasingly modern world's social and economic boundaries. Also, Cahun's participation in the Parisian Surrealist movement diversified the group's artwork and ushered in new representations. Most Surrealist artists were men, and their primary images were of women depicted as isolated symbols of eroticism. Cahun epitomized the chameleonic and various possibilities of genders and of the body. Their photographs, writings, and general life as an artistic and political revolutionary continue to influence artists.