MAN RAY

PHOTOGRAPHY-MAN RAY

Emmanuel Radnitzky, known as Man ray was a commercial artist and a technical illustrator, his earlier work and research mainly comprises of painting and drawing. He very much admired contemporary avant-garde art. He was particularly fascinated by the European modernists he saw at Alfred Stieglitz’s “291” gallery and works by the Ashcan School, however it took him some time before he gained the technical skills and ability to integrate this kind of style into his own works.

He became a quintessential avant-garde artist, Man Ray came to be recognised in 1920s when he joined his good friend Marcel Duchamp in Paris. Before pursuing his plastic work that he loved he took portrait and fashion photographs eventually becoming the most celebrated photographer in Paris he was known for various forms of art works such as paintings, sculptures, photography, collage and prints.

from 1920 to 1921 Man Ray abandoned the traditional techniques of painting instead he began obsessed with the objects, which he manipulated adapted or incorporated into his work within an innate Dada sensitivity.

ART MOVMENT-DADA The founder of Dada was a writer, Hugo Ball. In 1916 he started a nightclub in Zürich, Switzerland. The Cabaret Voltaire, and a magazine with the name Dada. This magazine that Hugo Ball created with the first of many Dada publications. Dada became an international movement in eventually formed the basis of surrealism in Paris after the war. Dadaists delighted in unconventional typography design, and modern imagery, it pushes modern art to the boundary between what is allowed to be called art and what isn’t, a good example of this is Marcel Duchamps ‘Fountain 1917’ which with a piece of the urinal that forced the viewers to question’what is art’. Dada was an anti-war movement, Switzerland with a safe haven in the time of the war, this was the inspiration for the art movement.

New York 1920 prominent example of his movement to Dada was man Ray’s treatment of discarded materials as valued objects, including this object which he made from nothing more than a jar and some ballbearings.

Cadeau 1920 This is one of the famous icons of the surrealist movement, it consists of an everyday continental flat iron the kind of iron that have to be heated on the stove. This found object is transformed here into a non-functional, disturbing object by the addition of a single row of 14 nails.

Transatlantic 1920 gambling on what he thought to be the future direction of American art he created this peice to symbolise the melding of the all the new worlds. He created a collage framed by crosshatching and checkered shapes with playful reference to canvas and perspective. He incorperated a Dada photo titled New York 1920 and in map of Paris which is inscribed transatlantic.

Eight Street 1920, Man Ray’s virtuosity in photography became a key part of the modernist revolution. As a deliberate attack on traditional aspects, he utilised discarded and discardable objects, such as a tin can. This particular object was made beautiful by the silvery tonalities of the photographic print.

Enigma of Isidore Ducasse 1920, at this time and Ray was developing an interest in Vanguard French literature which perhaps best exemplifies this new influence is a photograph of a sewing machine wrapped in the folds of thick carpet. Man Ray wanted the viewer to imagine what they believed to be the object under the carpet, he didn’t tell people that it was a sewing machine. Apparently this sculpture has some reference to a book he was reading, and to understand it you would first have to read the book.

I love man rays fashion photography, he cleverly utilises shadow and light to create some very effective and eye capturing styles. A lot of these effects are made from his famous “rayograph” technique, which he discovered upon accidentally switching the light on in his Paris darkroom, exposing the photo paper mid development and creating the dramatic contrast of light and dark that would become so integral to many of his future works.