norman lebrecht<\/p>\n
October 25, 2025<\/p>\n
American artist Man Ray, born Emmanuel Radnitzky, was a visionary known for his radical experiments that pushed the limits of photography, painting, sculpture, and film.<\/p>\n
In the winter of 1921, he pioneered the rayograph, a new twist on a technique used to make photographs without a camera. By placing objects on or near a sheet of light-sensitive paper, which he exposed to light and developed, Man Ray turned recognizable subjects into wonderfully mysterious compositions. Introduced in the period between Dada and Surrealism, the rayographs\u2019 transformative, magical qualities led the poet Tristan Tzara to describe them as capturing the moments \u201cwhen objects dream.\u201d<\/p>\n
This exhibition at the Met is the first to situate this signature accomplishment in relation to Man Ray\u2019s larger body of work of the 1910s and 1920s. Drawing from the collections of The Met and more than 50 American and international lenders, the exhibition features approximately 60 rayographs and 100 paintings, objects, prints, drawings, films, and photographs\u2014including some of the artist\u2019s most famous works\u2014to highlight the central role of the rayograph in Man Ray\u2019s boundary-breaking practice.<\/p>\n
\u201cBefore my eyes an image began to form, not quite a simple silhouette of the objects as in a straight photograph, but distorted and refracted \u2026 In the morning I examined the results, pinning a couple of the Rayographs\u2014as I decided to call them\u2014on the wall. They looked startlingly new and mysterious.\u201d \u2014 Man Ray<\/p>\n
Here is a virtual tour of Man Ray: When Objects Dream by Curators Stephanie D\u2019Alessandro and Stephen Pinson.<\/p>\n