Four centuries lie between the eye on the tile and this witness and this calls to mind a statement made by Man Ray in 1948 in 'Some Papers': 'Art is not a science. Art is not an experiment. There is no progress in art, any more than there is progress in courtship. There are merely different ways of doing it'.
Specifications
| Title | Le témoin |
|---|---|
| Material and technique | Wood, cardboard, paper, paint, chalk, pencil and adhesive tape |
| Object type |
Sculpture
> Three-dimensional object
> Art object
|
| Location | This object is in storage |
| Dimensions |
Height 15,4 cm Width 29,8 cm Depth 29,8 cm |
|---|---|
| Artists |
Artist:
Man Ray
|
| Accession number | BEK 1481 a-b (MK) |
| Credits | Gift artist, 1971 |
| Department | Modern Art |
| Acquisition date | 1971 |
| Creation date | in 1941 (1971) |
| Entitled parties | © Man Ray Trust / ADAGP, c/o Pictoright Amsterdam 2018 |
| Provenance | Artist’s collection |
| Exhibitions | Rotterdam/Paris/Humlebaek 1971-72; Paris 1972; Rotterdam 1996a; Drachten 1998; Rotterdam 2013b; Rotterdam 2014b; Rotterdam 2017b |
| Internal exhibitions |
Een prikkelcollectie (2000) De verlengde blik / The extended view (2013) Brancusi, Rosso, Man Ray - Framing Sculpture (2014) Collectie - surrealisme (2017) |
| External exhibitions |
Man Ray (2018) A Surreal Shock – Masterpieces from Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (2021) A Surreal Shock. Masterpieces from Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (2023) Dal nulla al sogno (2018) Surrealist Art - Masterpieces from Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (2021) Dalí, Magritte, Man Ray and Surrealism. Highlights from Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen (2023) Only the Marvelous is Beautiful (2022) |
| Research |
Show research Digitising Contemporary Art Show research A dream collection - Surrealism in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen |
| Literature | Rotterdam/Paris/Humlebaek 1971-72, p. 158, cat. no. 216, fig. p. 96; Schwarz 1977, p. 153, fig. 241; Man Ray/Martin 1983, p. 149, cat. no. 68 |
| Material | |
| Object | |
| Geographical origin | The United States of America > North America > America |
Entry catalogue Digitising Contemporary Art, A dream collection - Surrealism in Museum Boijmans Van beuningen
Author: Marijke Peyser
On 24 September 1971 Man Ray, a major retrospective, opened in Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen. In that same year the museum received a gift from the artist: a small sculpture he had made in 1941 and executed again in 1971, entitled Le témoin. It was made from a cardboard box that had contained Man Ray’s favourite sweets, Calissons d’Aix. The artist stuck a glass marble inside it: touching the corner of the box causes the eye to flinch as if it were witness to its surroundings.
Over the years the motif of the eye occupied an important place in the artist’s oeuvre. In 1927 Man Ray made Boule de neige, a small spherical object with a painted eye. Combined with water the sphere becomes a magnifying glass. It is the first example of his interest in optical effects.[1] The initiative for this work came from the first Galerie surréaliste. The gallerists had conceived a plan to make a series of around thirty snow globes as a parody of the well-known tourist souvenir. In the end only two were made; one by Picasso with a miniature reproduction of a still life and one by Man Ray.[2]
In Indestructible Object (Object to be Destroyed) (1932) the eye alludes to Man Ray’s love affair with the American photographer Lee Miller, who assisted him with his photographic work from 1929 onwards. When Miller left him in 1932, Man Ray made a drawing of a metronome to which he fastened a photograph of Miller’s eye. He added the following text to the drawing: ‘Cut out the eye from a photograph of one who has been loved but is seen no more. Attach the eye to the pendulum of a metronome and regulate the weight to suit the tempo desired. Keep going to the limit of endurance. With a hammer well-aimed, try to destroy the whole at a single blow.’[3] Miller, in turn, said of the metronome: ‘This object had existed for some years (from 1923); all kinds of eyes were attached to it. It was only when he fixed my eye to it (in 1932), that he gave the metronome the title Object to be Destroyed.[4]
Footnotes
[1] Schwarz 1980, p. 160.
[2] Ibid.
[3] Baldwin 1988, p. 168. The drawing was published in the magazine This Quarter, 5 (1 September 1932), no. 1, p. 55.
[4] Man Ray/Martin 1983, pp. 142-43. When a new version of the work was destroyed during an exhibition in 1957 Man Ray made the work again and changed the title to Indestructible Object. See Rotterdam 2014, p. 218.
All about the artist
Man Ray
Philadelphia 1890 - Parijs 1976
The American artist Emmanuel Radnitzky, who would call himself Man Ray, began his career as engraver and advertising designer. In New York he got to know the...
Bekijk het volledige profiel
