With this exhibition project dedicated to the American Emmanuel Radnitzky (1890-1976)
– better known as Man Ray
– we have transformed the Noble Hall of the Museum into a sort of avant-garde chamber of wonders. It is an anthology of his most emblematic photographs, from a private French collection and organized around three vectors: nudes, rayograms and portraits.
One area in which Man Ray excels is the photography of nudes and anatomy studies, which reflect his idea of the body as an object of desire. Figures overflowing with the “convulsive beauty” advocated by surrealism, whose expressiveness is accentuated by bold framing, transparencies, plays of light or fragmentations.
An erotic vision of the autonomous and daring woman, as in the photographs featuring colleagues, muses and lovers like Meret Oppenheim, Lee Miller, Dora Maar, Suzy Solidor or Kiki de Montparnasse. Man Ray's experimental side is found in his attraction to everyday elements without much artistic value.
Especially in rayograms, which are photographs taken without a camera. Negative and life-size images obtained by placing small objects on the photosensitive paper and exposing them to light for a few seconds. A set grouped together in the album Champs Délicieux (1922), with a preface by the Dadaist poet Tristan Tzara, author of the term rayographies, derived from the photographer's pseudonym.
Likewise, Man Ray is the author of an interesting gallery of famous people from Paris in the 1920s and 1930s, in which portraiture and fashion photography give him tremendous prestige. These compositions, with their sober staging and concentrated attention on the faces, are distinguished by the technical mastery of their author and constitute an unprecedented creative prodigy in the genre.
In addition, we show in a showcase a group of self-portraits of the photographer, where we can see his most carefree, mocking and provocative side over the years.
