Erotic objectivity. This exhibition includes Man Ray’s photographs, sculptures, paintings, prints, films, letters and drawings reference the female form and its inherent sensuality. In collaboration with the Long Island based Man Ray Trust and private collectors, Hillwood Art Museum will present an original exhibition curated jointly by Laura Moakley, Registrar at the Man Ray Trust, and Hillwood Art Museum.

More than 50 original works will be included in the exhibition as well as ephemera collected by the artist. The grouping includes work prints that Man Ray marked for cropping which provide insight into his compositional techniques. Man Ray used a variety of unique photographic methods to bring the photographic medium into the genre of Surrealism. Solarization, a technique that involves exposing the light sensitive paper to more or less light during the developing process, produces dramatic effects of light and dark while other photographs use double exposure to enhance surreal overtones. These techniques demonstrate Man Ray’s innovative ideas and desire to make photographs in the vein of Surrealism.

Man Ray’s contribution to photography came from his Dadaist background, friendship with Marcel Duchamp, and his involvement with the Surrealists in Paris in the 1920s. His understanding of the nature of object-making and experimentation freed him, and other later artists, to use photography as a form of expression within the language of Surrealism. He used light sensitive photographic paper to explore two-dimensional composition by placing objects on the paper, exposing it to light and then developing the paper using a traditional photographic process. These compositions of light and dark are known as Rayogaphs. Since there is no negative involved, as in traditional photography, they are each originals and do not exist as multiples.

Each of Man Ray’s artworks exhibits his immersion in the zeitgeist of Surrealism. His interest in the Surreal informed his artwork and furthered his exploration of the female form. The images contained in the exhibition are at once provocative and elegant.

Hillwood Art Museum is located on the C.W. Post campus of Error! Bookmark not defined., at 720 Northern Boulevard (Route 25A) in Brookville. For more information about Hillwood Art Museum or events, please visit the Museum’s web site at www.liu.edu/museum or phone (516) 299-4073. Hours of operation are Monday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday 9:30 – 4:30, Tuesday: 9:30 – 7:30, and Saturday 11:00 – 3:00.

Click here to see sample images.