Photography, since its origins, has invited experimentation. Overlaps, overexposures, technical accidents that turn into new expressive codes, unforeseen derivations of the main language. Man Ray was an absolute master of these discoveries, starting with solarization, which consists of exposing an image to light during development, thus creating unusual contrasts and marked contours. Today’s reading, sometimes forcibly inclined toward the politically correct, tends to attribute some of the credit for this technique to Lee Miller, as a female figure to be reevaluated. In contrast, the exhibition at the Royal Palace honestly returns the facts: it appears that Lee Miller accidentally turned on the light in the darkroom during development. The real credit belongs to chance, and to Man Ray that of having turned that mistake into a language.
The same goes for the “rayographs,” named after the photographer and born when, while working in the darkroom, he discovered that objects placed directly on photosensitive paper imprinted their shadows under the light, generating images that were as strange as they were amusing. Strangeness and fun: the pillars of surrealism of which Man Ray was a protagonist and which contributed greatly to the revolution, but also to the liberation, of artistic language.
But Man Ray was much more than that, as an extensive and articulate retrospective shows. Man Ray. Forms of Light, curated by Pierre-Yves Butzbach and Robert Rocca and promoted by the City of Milan - Culture, is produced by Palazzo Reale and Silvana Editoriale. The exhibition, open to the public until January 11, 2026, features about three hundred works including vintage photographs, drawings, lithographs, objects and documents.
Did we need an exhibition on an artist of this caliber? I think so. We take him too much for granted. It is needed to remind us where our taste for cropping selfies to the point of showing only extreme detail, for playing with Instagram filters to alter images until they are almost unrecognizable, for superimposing cutouts, albeit virtual ones.
Born Emmanuel Radnitzky in Philadelphia in 1890 as Emmanuel Radnitzky, he adopted the name Man Ray - “Man Ray of Light” - when he frequented New York intellectual circles. In 1921 he moved to Paris where he became a leading figure in the avant-garde artistic revolution. A friend of painters, writers, and intellectuals, his life was intertwined with the events of history and with figures who, like him, changed it. Picasso, Matisse, Schoenberg, Stravinsky. And then many women, who had such a weight in his existence that each deserves a space in this exhibition. Women have a comprimario role in the history of that period, and yet, even from the secondary place reserved for them, they weave events, direct inspirations.
While moving in a historical context marked by strong gender imbalances, Man Ray, as Raffaella Perna points out in the exhibition catalog, stood out for recognizing the creative force and talent of women. So in the exhibition there is a section for Kiki, queen of Montparnasse, model and lover, whose body, soft forms and desire to show herself to the world that is at the center of such a unique work as Le Violon d’Ingres, is celebrated by Man Ray. Then Nusch, born Maria Benz, Paul Éluard’s companion, with whom he constructs works-poems. And then there is Lee Miller, pupil, assistant, muse and lover. The only one, perhaps, with the strength to construct her own story independent of the man who introduced her, guided her, and taught her the craft. Man Ray’s portraits of Lee Miller capture the essence of their relationship, the experiments they shared, and the beauty of a woman who as a model and photographer became forever part of History.
Man Ray portrayed everyone who crossed his path and portrayed himself, playing with roles and personalities as well as photographic technique.
Also in this exhibition are his experiments in film, design, and fashion. His is one of the most famous portraits of Coco Chanel, black on a white background, off-white, with her pearl necklaces and mouthpiece cigarette. And when the exhibition seems over there is still so much to see. It is a journey made up of images that have penetrated so deeply into the collective imagination that we have forgotten who the author was.
The best known of Man Ray’s photographs, a detail of an eye weeping tears of glass beads, known precisely as Glass Tears, has been the subject of many interpretations, but it actually originated as an advertising shot, one for Arlette Bernard’s Cosmecil mascara that was accompanied by the slogan “Cry at the movies, cry at the theater, laugh till you cry, without fear for your beautiful eyes.”
Perhaps the exhibition route could have benefited from a more unified thread, but it is probably not possible to enclose Man Ray in the space of a single narrative. After all, this variety reflects the artist’s wealth of experience and multifaceted personality, which eludes any framing, any attempt to find a common thread in his path other than to experiment, continuously, challenging codified language.
“This exhibition is not for the general public, not even for a small number generous enough to accept an individual’s ideas. I cannot think or feel for many, and I am incapable of collaborating with more than one other person. This exposure is offered by one person to only one other person, to you who are here. Everything else is a simple matter of exchange”: this was the warning placed at the entrance to Man Ray’s exhibition at the Musée national d’art moderne in Paris in 1972. A warning that remains valid even today in the face of these forms of light.
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