ART-TRIBUTE:Man Ray

Man Ray (27/8/1890-18/11/1976), a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements, he used a variety of media but considered himself a painter. Man Ray is famous for his iconic black & white photos and his photograms which he called “rayographs”. He is less well known for his paintings. This is remedied by two summer special exhibitions: one at the NY Carlsberg Glyptotek in Copenhagen, and the other on Andros Island at the Museum of Contemporary Art. Both exhibitions add greatly to the overall story of Man Ray, showing us an unorthodox artist who takes the Surrealists’ fascination with dreams and merges it with hard science and classical literature.

By Dimitris Lempesis
Photo: Ny Carlsberg Glyptotek & Moca-Andros Archive

Few people associate Man Ray with colorful, oil paintings of three-dimensional mathematical figures. In the mid-1930s, Man Ray was introduced by his friend Max Ernst to a curious collection objects at Institut Henri Poincaré, an elite school for higher mathematics in Paris. Made of different materials, they were three dimensional models of complex trigonometric equations. To Man Ray, they had an appealing weirdness, suggesting biomorphic and human forms, curious saddles and at least one shape distinctly like an amply proportioned human posterior. The result was a series of iconic photographs. With the approach of World War II, Man Ray moved to Hollywood, where he returned to this process, using his photographs as the basis for a series of 20 paintings. In some of these paintings he depicted the mathematical models in others he would insert the models in complicated Surrealist tableaux. Augmented by titles from Shakespeare’s famous plays, these paintings added yet another ambitious layer to Man Ray’s artistic journey, which took him back and forth between two extremes: mathematical abstraction and human drama. The exhibition ”Man Ray – Human Equations” at Carlsberg Glyptotek is not arranged chronologically, instead, it follows a structure similar to that of three acts in a play. It shows the full artistic range and scope of Man Ray’s work, from his juvenilia to his late production, and three overarching themes focus on the material synergy between the works. Featuring more than 130 works, the exhibition adds greatly to the overall story of Man Ray, showing us an unorthodox artist who takes the Surrealists’ fascination with dreams and merges it with hard science and classical literature, 14 of the paintings from “Shakespearean Equations” series form the main axis of the show, providing a fundamental narrative about Man Ray’s fascination with universal enigmas. In parallel at Andros Island in Greece the exhibition “Man Ray – Visages of the woman”, which is on presentation at the Museum of Contemporary Art, is a tribute to the woman, anonymous or celebrity, successful or unsung, muse or mistress, the creation even of the artist’s imagination is immortalized and elevated into the dominant figure by every means and way throughout his creative course.

Info: ”Man Ray – Human Equations”, NY Carlsberg Glyptotek, Dantes Plads 7, Copenhagen, Duration: 11/6-20/9/15, Days & Hours: Fri-Sun & Tue-Wed: 11:00-18:00, Thu: 11:00-22:00, www.glyptoteket.com, “Man Ray – Visages of the woman”, Museum of Contemporary Art, Chora, Andros Island, Duration: 28/6 – 27/9/2015, Days & Hours: Wed-Mon: 10:00-14:00, www.moca-andros.gr