Presentation of Man Ray
Man Ray’s artistic work is very diverse. He is a visual art artist who is known for painting, photography, assemblage, collage and film. He was in a Russian immigrant family ⼀who was born in 1890 in Philadelphia. After studying in the National School of Design, he starts to create paintings and sculptures, and he became the first group of abstract artists in America. He was also in touch frequently with the avant-garde artist in Europe at the time. Therefore, he became the representative of avant-garde photographer in the 20th century.
May Ray was the founder in Dadaism and Surrealism in New York. He is considered as Surrealist photographer. His interested is to combine painting and photography and create a new work. He once said, “I PAINT WHAT CANNOT BE PHOTOGRAPHED, I PHOTOGRAPH THE THINGS THAT I DO NOT WISH TO PAINT,” which explains that he is not interested in painting nor photography itself, but the presentation of creation.
In the matter of photography, he embraces the sense of surrealism but still keep the daily elements. So, Surrealism and daily objects become two curial things on a two-dimensional libras that balance and having contrast with each other at the same time. For example, Ingre’s violin is a response to one of the historical paintings worked by Ingres, Odalisque. Here, Ray is trying to be ironic to the matter of sexual objectification in these kind of female paintings, which show beautiful and perfect shapes of women’s bodies. So, he utilizes daily object, an instrument, combining with photography to present women objectification. Finally, he becomes a significant contributor to the complementary art history for providing such unique perspectives in his work.
Source1:http://toynbeelau.blogspot.com/2014/06/man-ray.html
Source2: http://imagecoffee.net/cipdb/cipdb.asp?id=20