Man Ray, 1890-1976

ArtForum, Nov, 1995 by Bruce Hainley

Oh yes, Magic Lantern Head. When was the last time you thought about him? Nd Emmanuel Radnitsky in Philadelphia, changing his name to Man Ray when he married his first muse, Belgian poet Adon Lacroix (Donna Lecoeur), in 1913, he was called "The Man with the Magic Lantern Head" by Andre Breton. Magic Lantern Head wrote in "The pursuit of pleasure, my guiding motive, is not a science. Or, as I have previously stated, the desire not the necessity is the stimulant." Well, sadly, desire is almost totally frustrated by this chunky retrospective catalogue.

It's difficult to figure out who is responsible for this slipshod tome; the title page runs without author or editor or curator, as if Man Ray had produced it from nether realms, uh, magically. Let's put the blame on Ronny Van de Velde, since the tiny print says he designed, the thing and, with Jessy Van de Velde, organized the Antwerp exhibition from which it sprang. Ronny, I guess, didn't think it necessary to hire a proofreader, and the text is perforated with infelicities way a target is with buckshot (i.e., the jacket has Man Ray born in Brooklyn, the chronology, accurately, in Philly). Certain works have no attribution, as if they'd been stuck in at the last minute, after the main body of the book had already been shipped to the printer. No one thought it necessary to sign the brief preface, which at first glance most would think written by Breton. And Ronny, shamefully, gives no underling (or anyone else) credit for assembling the helpful, detailed "Chronology." Man Ray has no new critical apparatus, and while few hanker for the turgid ramblings that often accompany such books, it's hard to believe that nothing a little fresher than reprints of two brief essays by Breton and statements by Man Ray could be found-perhaps a new critical intervention by Molly Nesbit, or, at least, a reprint of one of Francis M. Naumann's sharp texts on the artist. The subdued loveliness of the colors of the Man Ray photograph on the cover-old lemon, ultramarine, umber, and ivory-makes the lack of even one set of color reproductions feel miserly, though since the catalogue is mostly reproductions of photographs, solarizations, and Rayographs originally in black and white, not much is lost. Even so, the quality of the reproductions is rather pedestrian, not shimmering or pungent.

Man Ray's best work explored the abstract thinginess of things-objects, bodies, geometries-interacting with light and photographed. But he also documented both Modernism's big shots - Marcel Duchamp, Pablo Picasso, Gertrude Stein-and its often elusive muses, patrons, sidekicks, and bit players. This book is so obviously not a scholarly production that it is a shame there is not even a bit of dish or info about those ephemeral beauties-gorgeous, behooped Ady (expanded to "Adrienne" in the chronology, sans surname, she and Man Ray spent "the summer in the south at Mougins") sunny Suzy Solidor, bewitching Kiki, and lithe Barbette, drag aerialist. How many people actually remember who Nancy Cunard was (fevered bohemian, stunner), what she did (wrote), and where her money came from (papa's ocean liners)? Who exactly was the Marquise Casati, whose gloriously spooky visage makes me want to make her the head of some lost cartel of Modernist castrati?

How were Man Ray's fashion photographs first published? The jacket mentions "his striking fashion spreads for Vanity Fair, Vogue, and Harper's Bazaar," but, typically, except for 1922:. . . . sells four rayographs to Vanity Fair," no other mention of these fashion mags occurs in the book. Man Ray's career richly questioned the categories of fashion and art. In 1921, age 31, he won "$10 for Portrait of a Sculptor (Berenice Abbott), in John Wanamaker's photography competition," a contest it's amusing to think of him even considering; some of his most crisply trig work was done for Paul Poiret and Elsa Schiaparelli. Did he include such work in his gallery shows? Or was it done for purely financial reasons and rapidly, as fashions often are, forgotten? The answers will not be found here.

The magic of Man Ray's Magic Lantern Head can be seen in many of his photographs, but nowhere more hauntingly than in Terrain vague, 1929 St. Few negotiated so clearly the vague terrain between art and not art that is photography's homeland; there was no reason for this book to reinstate a vagueness of its own. Much more should have been necessary, nothing at all would have been better.