At the beginning of the Man-Ray exhibition in the Aschaffenburger Kunsthalle Jesuitenkirche, visitors are confronted with a large chess game in a showcase.
It stands for play and joy - attitudes that were essential for the Dadaist and surrealist Man Ray.
His objects and pictures emerged from the joy of play, of course with an intellectual background, and sometimes developed out of chance, to which he consciously exposed himself.
Katharina Deschka
Editor in the Rhein-Main-Zeitung.
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Celebrating “objective coincidence”, the
hasard objectif
, as André Breton called it, is what defines the art of the Surrealists, says the director of the Jesuit Church Art Hall, Christiane Ladleif.
Man Ray, the great representative of the group of artists known as Surrealists, who explored, in a word, the “super-reality” in which the “seemingly contradictory states of dream and reality” dissolve, shows the Aschaffenburg Jesuit Church with more than 130 photographs and Objects, drawings and paintings as “magicians on paper” is the title of the show.
Quoted to the present
Man Ray, who was born in Philadelphia in 1890, then lived in New York and later in Paris, where he died in 1976, is best known for his photographs, and icons of his photographic art are consequently shown in the apse of the former church: “Larmes "(1930 to 1932/91), the watery eye, on one side," Érotique voilée "(1933/2016), the black painted Meret Oppenheim at the printing press, on the other. In between there is a wall full of women, his “femme”, mostly nudes of women looking seriously into the camera, who manage to look naked, reading or just wrapped in a fur coat, looking sensual and thoughtful at the same time.
These women are immediately present, and the fact that they were photographed almost 90 years ago can only be seen from their plucked and drawn eyebrows, which is typical of the time.
Because Ray's gaze was a new one, his detailed picture of the watery eye, for example, turned prevailing viewing habits upside down.
A coincidence while experimenting - his girlfriend and assistant at the time, Lee Miller, who later made a name for herself as a war photographer, briefly switched on the light while developing, writes Ray in his autobiography - allegedly let him discover the technology of solarization.
Because at the edges of what was depicted, which can also be seen in the show, a bright edge of light had emerged.
Ray's pictures are cited to the present day, such as the photo “Le violon d'Ingres” from 1924, which shows the back of his girlfriend at the time, Kiki de Montparnasse, with the painted openings of a violoncello.
In fashion shows, for example, Man-Ray allusions can still be found today, such as clefs and the watery eye on clothes.
They are pictures that everyone has seen before.
Special compilation
The reason why it is still worth going to the exhibition in Aschaffenburg is, on the one hand, due to the composition of the exhibits, which, in addition to the photographs, primarily includes a number of objects, such as the great chess game from 1920/62. Contexts are created that Man Ray would not have wanted to show in this way, Ladleif is certain. Nevertheless, it is a pleasure to discover these connections. The motif of the chessboard, for example, or the hand that keeps appearing across all media. Because, Man Ray was convinced, the most important thing for his art is the idea of a work of art, regardless of whether it is the original or a reproduction, and regardless of what media he used.