Man Ray
Man Ray (born as Emmanuel Radnitzky in 1890 in Philadelphia, died in 1976 in Paris) has always been primarily received as a photographer. He achieved worldwide renown for his portraits of artists and his rayographs of the 1920s, produced without the use of a camera. However, Man Ray painted, drew, designed, made films and objects, wrote, invested his talents enthusiastically in typography, book and magazine design, and pursued a veritable career as experimental fashion photographer for Harper鈥檚 Bazaar and Vogue 鈥� thus providing enviable scope for Kunstforum to visualise all this in its exhibition. Man Ray exploited countless artistic media and techniques in an inventive and playful manner. In his autobiography, appearing in 1963, he wrote: 鈥�... the instrument did not matter 鈥� one could always reconcile the subject with the means and get a result that would be interesting (...) One should be superior to his limited means, use imagination, be inventive.鈥�
While Man Ray鈥檚 photography is omnipresent in every overview on Dadaism and Surrealism, until now only few people in the German-speaking regions have been aware of him as a universal artist. His artistic brinkmanship relates not only to very diverse media, but also the two art capitals of the twentieth century 鈥� Paris and New York, where Man Ray alternately lived. Kunstforum鈥檚 exhibition will be devoted to 鈥渢he universal Man Ray鈥� and critically address discourses that mark his oeuvre in general, such as the closeness and distance between male and female physicality and creativity and their enactment in his oeuvre; it will also show Man Ray as 鈥渇riend to everyone who was anyone鈥�, who associated in the most glamorous circles of society and thus as prototype of the artistic networker and catalyst.
A selection of 150 keyworks from all over the world, including painting, photography, objects, works on paper, collages and assemblages and experimental film, will help to map the outline of an enigmatic and complex artist personality who paved the way for modern and contemporary art, and 鈥� in congenial artistic complicity with Marcel Duchamp 鈥� laid groundwork for how and what we see as 鈥渁rt鈥� today.
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Man Ray (born as Emmanuel Radnitzky in 1890 in Philadelphia, died in 1976 in Paris) has always been primarily received as a photographer. He achieved worldwide renown for his portraits of artists and his rayographs of the 1920s, produced without the use of a camera. However, Man Ray painted, drew, designed, made films and objects, wrote, invested his talents enthusiastically in typography, book and magazine design, and pursued a veritable career as experimental fashion photographer for Harper鈥檚 Bazaar and Vogue 鈥� thus providing enviable scope for Kunstforum to visualise all this in its exhibition. Man Ray exploited countless artistic media and techniques in an inventive and playful manner. In his autobiography, appearing in 1963, he wrote: 鈥�... the instrument did not matter 鈥� one could always reconcile the subject with the means and get a result that would be interesting (...) One should be superior to his limited means, use imagination, be inventive.鈥�
While Man Ray鈥檚 photography is omnipresent in every overview on Dadaism and Surrealism, until now only few people in the German-speaking regions have been aware of him as a universal artist. His artistic brinkmanship relates not only to very diverse media, but also the two art capitals of the twentieth century 鈥� Paris and New York, where Man Ray alternately lived. Kunstforum鈥檚 exhibition will be devoted to 鈥渢he universal Man Ray鈥� and critically address discourses that mark his oeuvre in general, such as the closeness and distance between male and female physicality and creativity and their enactment in his oeuvre; it will also show Man Ray as 鈥渇riend to everyone who was anyone鈥�, who associated in the most glamorous circles of society and thus as prototype of the artistic networker and catalyst.
A selection of 150 keyworks from all over the world, including painting, photography, objects, works on paper, collages and assemblages and experimental film, will help to map the outline of an enigmatic and complex artist personality who paved the way for modern and contemporary art, and 鈥� in congenial artistic complicity with Marcel Duchamp 鈥� laid groundwork for how and what we see as 鈥渁rt鈥� today.
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