The Mu mu gallery has a passage made of balloons at the entrance to the exhibition hall – supposedly a hundred years ago, when Man Ray opened his first exhibition in Paris, he also greeted his audience with countless balloons. The unfettered artist, with the typical Dada spirit, chose the medium on whether it satisfies his conceptual needs. Man Ray's photography broadens the boundaries of the entire genre and challenges the laws of traditional aesthetics, both elegant and popular. Man Ray originally picked up the camera to document his own paintings, but he eventually became one of the most creative photographers of the 20th century. With more than 240 works, the exhibition presents the artist's artistic career in the past 50 years.
Exhibition site
Like many avant-garde artists, Man Ray has a typical "modern art genius" upbringing. First of all, he had a bumpy childhood, which first came from his origins. Emmanuel Radnitzky Jr. came from a Russian-Jewish family that immigrated to the United States and was the eldest son of the family. Faced with the widespread anti-Semitism in society at the time, the Jewish immigrant family chose a common means of self-preservation: changing names and surnames. Man Ray studied painting, architecture, engineering, and more at a high school in New York, and when he graduated from high school, he made a "genius" decision: to give up a scholarship for architecture and resolve to become a painter. Man Ray encountered the typical "confusion and opposition from the family", but he eventually got a room in his home and began his career as a painter.
Self-Portrait, 1930 Gelatin Silver Salt Photo Paper (Postprint)
Image courtesy of Man Ray International Association (Paris) © MAN RAY TRUST/ADAGP, Paris & SACK, Seoul, 2021
Man Ray caught up with a period of free and open art. At this time, the canonical canon of Western art history was modern art centered on Paris. Despite its limited scale, a new fashion for learning from Paris emerged in New York. Alfred Stieglitz, another important figure in the history of photography, opened Gallery 291 on Fifth Avenue in New York, providing Man Ray with an environment to learn about avant-garde art, and Man Ray was impressed by Stiglitz's own exploration of the art of photography. The 1913 Armory Exhibition provided Man Ray with more new ideas and sensory experiences from European modernists, and after moving to Ridgefield, New Jersey, he used these experiences to begin his own independent work. It was here that Man Ray met the Belgian writer Adon Lacroix, who married in 1914. Lacroix introduced him to French literature: Malami, Rimbaud, Baudelaire, Apollinaire... She became his first muse, and the two collaborated together on avant-garde attempts such as pictorial poetry. In Man Ray's later life, romantic relationships became an important factor in his artistic development.
Portrait of Rose Seravia, 1921 gelatin silver salt photographic paper (postprint)
图⽚由 Telimage, Phototheque Man Ray, Paris 惠 允 © MAN RAY TRUST/ ADAGP, Paris & SACK, Seoul, 2021
Under the direction of Stiglitz, Man Ray began to use photography to record his work, and in his opinion, it was the artist himself who could most faithfully capture the work with the lens. In addition to his wife and daughter, Man Ray's early subjects also had a number of visiting guests, the most distinctive of whom was naturally Marshall Duchamp. Duchamp was already making a name for himself in the United States for exhibiting the Armory — or rather, for his infamy. The two soon became close friends and began artistic collaborations, most notably Rrose Sélavy, a female figure set as Duchamp's alternate self. The name is pronounced similarly in French to "love is life", which is exactly the language game that Duchamp is good at. Man Ray took a series of photographs of this "her."
Black and White, 1926 Gelatin Silver Salt Photo Paper (postprint)
Following Dadaists such as Duchamp, Francis Picabia, and Tristan Tzara, Man Ray's exhibitions have traveled throughout Zurich, Paris, and Berlin. Dadaism's radical artistic claims and diverse forms of creation attracted a lot of attention, and also allowed Man Ray to integrate into the avant-garde art circle in Europe, which was often difficult for American artists to penetrate. Man Ray gradually became disillusioned with the artistic environment of his home country, and the exhibition in Europe led him to consider formally moving to Paris, the center of modern art. On July 14, 1921, the French National Day, Man Ray moved to Paris. Although his French proficiency was limited, with the help of Duchamp and others, he was soon seen as an overseas Dadaist comrade-in-arms who had tried to maintain his artistic vitality in the "barren land" of New York— in a letter to Tristan Chala, Man Ray wrote: "Dada cannot survive in New York." On December 3 of that year, with the help of Dada's friends, Man Ray held his first solo exhibition in Paris. It was in this exhibition that Man Ray created his famous ready-made installation Gifts on a fortuitous occasion– an iron with a row of nails glued to the bottom. The actual benefits of the exhibition were minimal, but Man Ray saw it as an iconic event for himself to become a true artist.
Observatory Time – Lover, 1934/1967 Multicolored lithograph
But artists also have to live. Man Ray decided to make photography his main source of income, and his friends were his original clients. In the exhibition hall, many portraits of Dada and Surrealist artists can be seen in the exhibition hall, which have become valuable historical records, and Man Ray's lenses give them more charm. After that, Man Ray's personality-filled photographs began to appear in fashion magazines, and he became more and more busy, with little time to paint, while his photography became more free.
Man Ray, Printer: Sergi - The Anatomy of 1930 Gelatin Silver Salt Photographic Paper (Postprint) Image by Man Ray International Association (Paris) Huiyun © MAN RAY TRUST/ADAGP, Paris & SACK, Seoul, 2021
Man Ray was one of the first artists to explore the potential of photography as a medium. When mastering the standard methods of photography, Man Ray made the typical Dada attempt: abandoning the camera. Man Ray experimented directly on photosensitive paper in the darkroom, a technique invented in the 19th century and rarely practiced. He found that when the photosensitive paper turns black due to exposure, objects placed on the paper leave a white projection. So by moving objects from time to time, hanging above paper, removing or adding new objects, and moving light sources, Man Ray created a photograph that was so different from the general impression that he named it rayogragh (adding his own name "ray"). "I was freed from the hassle of painting the medium, and now I can create directly with light." Man Ray's pioneering experiments transformed photography from a tool for recording the world into a means of creating images, where reality or unreal no longer mattered, only selection, discovery, and experimentation.
Man ray ,Picasso's Painted Hand, 1935 Gelatin Silver Salt Photographic Paper (postprint)
Man Ray was almost the only photographer to span the two major artistic movements of Dada and Surrealist. For André Breton and other surrealists, "automatic" was a crucial factor in art, and the momentary and immediacy of photography was seen as an effective passageway to the unconscious. Man Ray's exploration of poetic objects made it quickly popular with Surrealists—including his later close friend Max Ernst—and was revered as a pioneer of surrealist photography. In Montparnasse, a famous literary district in Paris, Man Ray became obsessed with the famous muse and singer Kiki de Montparnasse. For some time afterwards, Gigi became Mann Ray's lover and important model, including Ingres's Violin, in which Man Ray placed a pair of sound holes on Gigi's bare back, turning her body into a violin in the photograph, and Gigi's parody of Ingres's masterpieces mixed classical tradition, formal beauty, and desire to watch.
Ingres's Violin, 1924 Gelatin Silver Salt Photo Paper (postprint)
Man Ray met Lee Miller, a model from New York, in 1929, and Miller soon learned Man Ray's fine techniques and began assisting him in his creations. In addition to being often the protagonist of Man Ray's photographs of this period, Miller helped Man Ray achieve the use of the Sabati effect to produce negative photos, a form that soon became another of Man Ray's signature styles. And when Miller decided to leave him and return to the United States to start his own business, Man Ray revived an installation, The Thing to Be Destroyed: "Cut your eyes off the photograph of your vanished lover." Fix it to the swing pin of the metronome and choose the desired speed. Adjust the speed until it is unbearable. Raise the hammer with your hand and try to destroy it with one blow. The artist describes the work as a companion to his creation – just like the owner of the eye in the photograph. When she left, the artist tried to keep her gaze by her side. Nearly 40 years later, Man Ray named it Eternal Themes. In today's exhibition hall, this work bears witness to the artist's mourning and relief.
Lee Miller (Inverted Developer) 1929 Gelatin Silver Salt Photo Paper (Postprint)
A dedicated area in the exhibition showcases the work of Meret Oppenheim. Like many modernist movements, women's artistic activity is often overlooked in art history. Oppenheim was one of the few women who could break into the surreal circles of male domination, and like most of Man Ray's female models, Oppenheim didn't mind being nudged in front of the camera, but at the same time we realized that this kind of nudity was unusual—other Man Ray artist friends (mostly male) rarely showed their bodies. Oppenheim's photographs show the complex relationship between the artist and the gender temperament of that era, which is constantly repeated in the photographs, her own work, and the exhibition space in which she finds herself. In the exhibition hall space, the "white box" of modernism is mixed with turf, like a dream in the picture of a surrealist, where rationality and irrationality, moderation and desire are intertwined.
Showroom scene
Perhaps it is precisely this enclave throughout the exhibition that hints at Man Ray's location. There is no difference between the insistence on art and the insistence on desire, which lurks at the bottom of the dream, lurks at the bottom of love, and so lurks at the bottom of the image. The psychoanalyst Jacques Lacan once said, "Don't give in to desire." Man Ray has undoubtedly done just that, allowing him to move freely between the avant-garde art scene and Fashion Vanity Fair. Lacan continues: "For desire is always the desire of the greater Other. This is hinted at by the title of the exhibition, "New York by Day, Paris at Midnight", which hopes to evoke a desire in today's Beijing, a collection of contradictions: destruction and production, the provocation of Dadaism and the vanity of the middle class, Duchamp and Chanel ... Man Ray plays the role of the GreatEr, guiding the audience to desire him, to desire art, and never stop.
Wen 丨 Luo Yifei
The organizer is thanked for the relevant graphic information
Photo: Mumu Museum video team
Exhibition information
"Man Ray: New York by Day, Paris at Midnight"
Curator: Wang Zongfu Marion Meyer
Exhibition Hours:
October 1, 2021 - January 2, 2022
Exhibition Venue:
Mumu Museum (Museum 798)
Courtyard D-06, No. 2, No. 2, Jiuxianqiao Road, Jiuxianqiao Road, Chaoyang District, Beijing