Man Ray: When Objects Dream - Hardcover

D'Alessandro, Stephanie; Pinson, Stephen C.

This title will be released on September 30, 2025

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 1588398021 ISBN 13: 9781588398024

Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art, 2025

Synopsis

The first in-depth study of Man Ray’s groundbreaking rayographs of the 1920s and their interconnections with his Dada and Surrealist works
 
This is the first in-depth study of the rayograph (or camera-less photograph) pioneered by Man Ray (1890–1976) in 1920s Paris, between the Dada and Surrealist movements. The transformative, magical qualities of these experiments led the poet Tristan Tzara to describe them as capturing moments “when objects dream.” Oscillating between representation and abstraction, the rayograph was ambiguous in its making and subject matter, encapsulating avant-garde concerns of the day. This book highlights connections and shared motifs between the rayographs and Man Ray’s paintings, photographs, drawings, objects, and films. Stephanie D’Alessandro and Stephen C. Pinson analyze the artist’s innovative methods while also exploring key themes across a broad range of his art production, such as chance, indeterminacy, transformation, and preoccupation with dualities.
 
Published by The Metropolitan Museum of Art/Distributed by Yale University Press
 
Exhibition Schedule:
 
The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
(September 14, 2025–February 1, 2026)

About this title

About the Author

Stephanie D’Alessandro is the Leonard A. Lauder Curator of Modern Art and Senior Research Coordinator in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art, and Stephen C. Pinson is curator in the Department of Photographs, both at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Edition details

• Publisher: Metropolitan Museum of Art
• Publication date: 2025
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 1588398021
• ISBN 13: 9781588398024
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 338