NorthJersey.com: The visible and obscured Man Ray

NorthJersey.com: The visible and obscured Man Ray:

"Man Ray poses an interesting challenge for an institution like the Jewish Museum: how to frame an exhibit about a Jewish artist who, throughout his career, denied his Jewishness?

Few people know that the famous avant-garde artist and photographer was born Michael Emmanuel Radnitzky to Russian Jewish immigrants. Ray, who spent most of his adult life in Paris, cast aside not only his Jewish identity, but also much of his American one, disappearing almost entirely into the role of a European dadaist and surrealist.

Rather than sidestepping a seemingly uncomfortable issue, the Jewish Museum has put it front and center, titling the show 'Alias Man Ray: The Art of Reinvention' and making Ray's enigmatic, contradictory persona its focus.

Few artists have been so simultaneously narcissistic and self-effacing. His self-obsession comes across in all the self-portraits he did in different media — from photographic to sculptural to abstract to conceptual. If there's a signature image to this show, it's his 1933 'Autoportrait,' a wooden box containing a bronze cast of his face cushioned by crumpled newsprint. He looks out defiantly as if enduring the indignity of popular opinion." Sphere: Related Content