Art Review
Man Ray Was So Much More Than a Photographer
From film to painting to sculpture to chess, the Surrealist was an artist-inventor, tinkering away at light and objects and having a good laugh all the while.
Man Ray
Film
Man Ray’s Beguiling and Bemusing Filmscapes
Man Ray’s Return to Reason film series anticipated the extent to which the motion picture would inform how we curate and call up memory.
News
One of the Most Famous Images of the 20th Century Is Going Up For Auction
Man Ray’s surrealist portrait of Kiki de Montparnasse, “Le Violon d’Ingres” (1924), could become the most expensive photograph ever sold.
Art
The Seductive Misogyny of Man Ray
There’s something deeply violent lurking below the surface of Man Ray and Fashion, an aspect made all the more troubling by a curatorial strategy of omission.
Art
Marie Cuttoli, the Entrepreneur Who Brought Modern Art to the Textile Industry
Cuttoli recruited artists like Picasso and Man Ray to design textiles for her workshops in Algeria and shop in Paris, bringing Modernism to a broader audience in the early 20th century.
Interview
Jim Jarmusch and Carter Logan on Their Surreal Soundscapes for Man Ray’s Silent Films
Jarmusch and Logan's SQÜRL — which they describe as an “enthusiastically marginal rock band” — weaves a trippy musical accompaniment to four silent films by Man Ray.
Books
How Surrealism’s Playful Aesthetic Was Deeply Political
The Surrealists’ insistence on irrationality was not a sport, but an attempt to engage in the political debates of their time.
Art
Was Man Ray the Inspiration Behind the Black Dahlia Murder?
Steve Hodel believes his father — a friend of the surrealist — committed the grizzly Hollywood murder as an emulation of the artist's techniques.
Books
Dada’s Holy Grail
Marcel Duchamp’s zines leapt from their lair to entertain artists and educate the public.
Art
Entangled Objects Through the Ages, from Sorcerers’ Amulets to Voodoo Dolls
The latest show at La Maison Rouge is a collection of hexing creations that are difficult to disentangle and fully interpret.
Art
The Power of Protest Art, from Goya to Polke
In Soulèvements, an ahistorical exhibition of art made for and about acts of protest, works either make their political agendas self-evident or embed them in their formal properties.
Books
Reader’s Diary: Man Ray's ‘Writings on Art’
Jennifer Mundy acknowledges in her Preface to Man Ray’s Writings on Art that, compared to his friends Duchamp and Picabia, he has come to be seen as something of a lightweight.