Curator Wendy Grossman takes you through the galleries of Man Ray–Human Equations, explaining how the exhibition charts a path “from object to image, from photography to painting, from Surrealist Paris to golden-age Hollywood.”
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Man Ray’s Literary Homage Through Painting
(left) Man Ray, Aline et Valcour, 1950. Oil on canvas, 30 x 38 in. Private Collection. © Man Ray Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY / ADAGP, Paris 2015 (right) Man Ray, Untitled (Mannequin with Cone and Sphere), 1926. Gelatin silver print, 11 x 14 1/4 in. The Bluff Collection. © Man Ray Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY / ADAGP, Paris 2015
Titling this work after a novel written by the Marquis de Sade while he was incarcerated in the Bastille in the 1780s, Man Ray pays homage to the literary figure greatly admired by the Surrealists. The novel Aline et Valcour explores the relativity of moral standards, a theme the viewer is encouraged to find embedded in this cryptic composition based on Man Ray’s photograph featuring the same elements.
What similarities between Man Ray’s photograph (at right) and his painting (at left) of the subject do you notice? What differences stand out?
Sea Shells, Galaxies, and Lampshades: Man Ray’s Spiral Obsession
Lampshade, 1919 (editioned replica, 1964), Painted aluminum. Private collection, courtesy Fondazione Marconi, Milan
“Nature, from the sea shell to the galaxy, is full of spirals. When I was a young man, I was already obsessed with this form; when working as a draughtsman I was fascinated by curves, spirals, parabolas, hyperbolas.”
–Man Ray
In 1919, inspired by the chance discovery of an unraveled paper lampshade in the trash, Man Ray created Lampshade, one of the earliest manifestations of his obsession with the spiral. Like many of his other objects, this work continued to exist as a concept even after the original was lost, becoming better known through photographic translations and the 1939 painting Le Retour à la raison (Return to Reason). Man Ray made multiple replicas of Lampshade, including one featured in the 1944 exhibition Objects of My Affection.