We’ve been loving all of the incredible submissions to our InstaManRay in-gallery experience inspired by Man Ray’s photos of mathematical equations. Visitors to Man Ray–Human Equations can snap photos of 3D printed mathematical models and share them via Instagram (see a previous roundup here).
Some of our favorites have been photos that use the mathematical objects as frames. What do you spy in these photos? See more by following the projects Instagram account @InstaManRay2015 or #InstaManRay.
Masterworks from The Phillips Collection being packed up and shipped back home
After a visit to the Daejeon Museum of Art in central Korea, masterworks by the likes of Daumier, Degas, Kandinsky, Picasso, and more from The Phillips Collection are headed back to the U.S. Phillips Preparator Shelly Wischhusen and Associate Registrar for Exhibitions Trish Waters snapped some pictures as the exhibition was being packed up (and got in some sightseeing as well!).
Phillips Staff outside the Seoul Arts Center.
(left) A quote from Duncan Phillips on the walls of the Korean exhibition (right) Associate Registrar for Exhibitions Trish Waters and Vice President of EduChosun Jung Tae Choi pose with cutouts from Manet’s Spanish Ballet
More crates are brought in for packing up artwork.
Phillips employees took some time to sight-see, including Olafur Eliasson’s installation at Leeum, Samsung Museum of Art in Seoul.
View of the Dongdaemun Design Plaza.
Phillips Preparator Bill Koberg and Associate Registrar for Exhibitions Trish Waters pose in front of a Buddhist Hanging Scroll for Outdoor Rituals (Joseon, 1700, 995X915cm, Treasure No. 1268, owned by Naesosa Temple) at the National Museum of Korea.
(left) Man Ray, Shakespearean Equation, Julius Caesar, 1948. Oil on masonite, 24 × 19 3/4 in. The Rosalind & Melvin Jacobs Collection, New York. © Man Ray Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY / ADAGP, Paris 2015 (right) Mathematical Object: Real Part of the Function w=e, c. 1900. Plaster, 9 × 12 3/8 × 7 1/2 in. Brill-Schilling Collection. Institut Henri Poincaré, Paris. Photo: Elie Posner
Julius Caesar epitomizes Man Ray’s inventive approach to humanizing and translating mathematical models into enigmatic forms in his Shakespearean Equations series. In this composition (at left), he mapped out the undulating lines defining the model, creating a headless torso and casting the transformed object as the central character in a theatrical tableau. Note on the blackboard behind the imposing form barely discernable mathematical equations such as “2 + 2 = 22.” These seemingly illogical mathematical notations embed further mystery in Man Ray’s characteristically enigmatic manner. In the space between two relational formulations on the blackboard the artist posed the philosophical question and unsolved problem of the “square root of Man Ray.” The answer to and meaning of this conundrum is left for us to decipher for ourselves.
Of his Shakespearean Equations, Man Ray once stated “In painting [the models], I did not copy them literally but composed a picture in each case, varying the proportions, adding color, ignoring the mathematical intent, and introducing an irrelevant form sometimes, as a butterfly or the leg of a table.” In his rendering of Julius Caesar, he recycled the table leg employed in his 1945 object Obelisk see Oculist (Pied à terre) to evoke the scepter of a triumphant general.
Do you see anything else in this painting that might evoke Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar?
Wendy Grossman, Exhibition Curator
