Man Ray: Gagosian
Installation view, Man Ray: The Mysteries of Château du Dé, 2020
Artworks © May Ray Trust/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris 2019
Photo: Johnna Arnold, Impart Photography
Man Ray, born Emmanuel Radnitzky, was a multidisciplinary artist who worked in a range of mediums. Though he may be best known for his paintings and sculptures, the work that Gagosian San Francisco has on display, through February 29th, highlights his dreamy film and photography projects while still including other relevant objects and drawings. As stated by Ray himself, it was important for him to relinquish the “sticky medium of paint” and work “directly with light itself.” This, although seeming like a shift in practice, is merely a return to the camera – an instrument that piqued the artist’s interest in 1920s New York while working with Marcel Duchamp, a key figure in the Dadaist movement.
Growing up in Brooklyn with a father who worked in a garment factory, and an entire family dedicated to the business of tailoring, Ray’s early life left a lasting impression on his work as a multi-talented artist. It is both evident in some of his techniques, which resembles those used while tailoring, and the imagery he chooses to perpetuate as motifs throughout bodies of work, some of which are presented in Man Ray: The Mysteries of Château du Dé.
MAN RAY
Film still from Emak Bakia, 1926
Gelatin silver print
9 1/16 x 11 13/16 in
23 x 30 cm
© May Ray Trust/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris 2019
The three films at the center of Gagosian’s exhibit, Les Mystères du Château du Dé, Emak Bakia, and L’étoile de mer, came at the apex of artistic surrealism. Though they range in theme, one created as an homage to a poem, another as a documentation of an art collection and another as mere experimentation, Ray’s overlooked medium now demands attention. In Emak Bakia, Ray distorts his subject matter through an unconventional use of camera angles and movements. Similarly, in Les Mystères du Château du Dé, Ray steers away from the traditional, avoiding plot lines and linearity. L’étoile de mer, on the other hand, was produced to express Ray’s intimate relationship with a piece of writing, something that was never made with the intent of screening. Ultimately, Gagosian’s decision to include these films as focal points of Ray’s extensive work offers yet another facet of the ever-versatile artist.
The photographs and sculptures that accompany the films are proof of how the artist further entangled his work across mediums. Being regularly inspired by stills from his filmmaking process, Ray produced photographic stills and put objects/sculptures on view which can all be observed through moments in his films. In this way, the three films that run through the exhibition serve as a touchstone for the other works on view, one always informing the other. The relationships that this creates makes the exhibition feel whole, much like his life as an artist with diverse interests.
Ray’s refusal to confine himself to any one medium makes him an exemplary figure in artistic history and the major movements, both Dadaist and Surrealist, that fostered his work.
Installation view, Man Ray: The Mysteries of Château du Dé, 2020
Artworks © May Ray Trust/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York/ADAGP, Paris 2019
Photo: Johnna Arnold, Impart Photography
