Join Now<\/a><\/p>\nMan Ray and Max Dupain sees the two artists\u2019 photographs hung side by side, blurring the distinction between their individual work. \u201cIt\u2019s really interesting to observe how those two are looking into each other, although they didn\u2019t know each other,\u201d she says. <\/p>\n
Starting her career at the Centre Pompidou in Paris, France, de l\u2019Ecotais put together an inventory of 15,000 photographic negatives and 5,000 contact sheets of Man Ray\u2019s works, making her one of the world\u2019s foremost experts on the artist. Heide\u2019s artistic director asked her to come to Melbourne to collaborate on a new show about Man Ray, resulting in an exhibition that also focuses on how the way we think about photography as art has evolved.<\/p>\n
Man Ray emigrated from New York to Paris in the 1920s seeking artistic freedom, and became known for controversial statements like \u201cphotography isn\u2019t art\u201d. \u201cIt was his way of saying, \u2018I\u2019m doing this by chance. Everything is so easy to do.\u2019 He was playing a game of somebody who\u2019s not working, who\u2019s just having fun,\u201d says de l\u2019Ecotais.<\/p>\n
But the reality was different: when you see Man Ray\u2019s work up close, you observe thoughtful techniques like cropping, pose experimentation, and retouching. \u201cHe was hiding all these details of work. Max Dupain was the same, in his techniques and practice. They were both \u2018living their medium\u2019, which is photography.\u201d<\/p>\n
Man Ray\u2019s work revealed contradictions: \u201cIt\u2019s like, \u2018click, clack, Kodak\u2019, you push the button, and that\u2019s it. But it\u2019s also a kind of lie. It\u2019s a kind of mystification of what photography is \u2013 really \u2013 because he\u2019d work all night long to create these images. He just didn\u2019t want to tell everybody, \u2018I\u2019m working hard!\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n
Max Dupain, meanwhile, spent his life in Sydney, discovering Man Ray through international journals and magaines and the book Photographs by Man Ray 1920\u20131934. Like Man Ray, Dupain explored abstraction, nudes and fashion photography, often using superimposition to create layered images. He was also considered groundbreaking for being the first Australian photographer to comprehensively take the female nude as a subject. \u201cHe had a very original way of photographing the women, the skin and the body. There\u2019s this direct and simple sometimes point of view on the body,\u201d says de l\u2019Ecotais.<\/p>\n
Both artists were prolific and significantly impacted photography: May Ray with his European avant-garde approach and Dupain for his pioneering take on Australian modernism.<\/p>\n
The exhibition also honours Man Ray and Max Dupain\u2019s respective partners: Lee Miller and Olive Cotton, who were each accomplished photographers in their own right. Miller became a photojournalist and war photographer, while Cotton specialised in experimental photography, exploring landscapes, serial imagery, and flowers \u2013 blurring the lines between fantasy and reality.<\/p>\n
\u201cMiller began her career with Man Ray in the \u201920s but left him in the \u201930s and figured out how to become one of the best photographers of the 20th century after that. Cotton had a great relationship with Dupain, but no one really knew about her work.\u201d <\/p>\n
Visitors will see a mix of famous works and lesser-known pieces from the two artists: Man Ray\u2019s aristocratic portraits and images of contemporaries such as Salvador Dali sit alongside Dupain\u2019s pre-war nudes and Vogue fashion photography from when Helmut Newton was emerging in Australia.<\/p>\n
\u201cYou don\u2019t feel like they\u2019re just old pictures. They\u2019re still so incredibly beautiful,\u201d says de l\u2019Ecotais. \u201cIn the exhibition, all the images have their own personality, their own theme. The subject matter might have parallels, but they aren\u2019t treated as the same. It\u2019s a real pleasure to be able to witness these images in front of you.\u201d <\/p>\n
Man Ray and Max Dupain runs from August 6 to November 9, 2025. Find out more and get tickets at heide.com.au<\/a>.<\/p>\nBroadsheet is a proud media partner of Heide Museum of Modern Art.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Art historian and curator Emmanuelle de l\u2019Ecotais has been researching the work of American visual artist Man Ray…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":92649,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[449,458,459,64,63,460,134],"class_list":["post-92648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-arts-and-design","tag-arts","tag-arts-and-design","tag-artsanddesign","tag-au","tag-australia","tag-design","tag-entertainment"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92648","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=92648"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/92648\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/92649"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=92648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=92648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/au\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=92648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}