Surrealism between art and fashion: the Man Ray and Fashion exhibition at the MoMu in Ant

The “Man Ray and fashion” exhibition at the MoMu in Antwerp, open until 13 August 2023, is a fascinating immersion into the world of Man Ray, where fashion and photography merge into a unique and extraordinary visual experience. This exhibition offers visitors the opportunity to explore the intersection between Man Ray's surreal aesthetic, his iconic shots and his revolutionary impact on fashion. The exhibition demonstrates how surrealism influenced fashion design by highlighting the intersection between fashion and art, and Man Ray's role as a bridge between the two worlds. Man Ray has broken new ground in the representation of fashion through photography. Born Emmanuel Radinski in 1890 in Philadelphia , he initially approached art through painting. It was only later, during his time in Paris in the 1920s, that he developed a passion for photography. In the Ville Lumière he met the great artists and intellectuals of the time, such as Picasso, Duchamp and Dalì who profoundly influenced his work. Using techniques such as overexposure, double exposure and solar photography, Man Ray was able to create surprising and often enigmatic compositions. His photography was a real explosion of creativity, a way to free the unconscious and give shape to alternative worlds. It is no coincidence that his works were often full of symbolic meaning with many allusions to eroticism and the unconscious. Antwerp's MoMu celebrates the genius of Man Ray with an exhibition spanning his entire career, from his Paris beginnings in the 1920s to his more mature works. The selection includes a wide range of iconic artwork, objets d'art and clothing. Thanks to this broad overview, visitors can understand the evolution of his surreal aesthetics, his technical experiments, the innovative spirit that made him a central figure in 20th century art.

Like most Belgian art and fashion, Antwerp's MoMu has an avant-garde and consciously provocative approach to exhibitions: “One of the roles of a contemporary art museum is to push the meaning of the term 'fashion'. People need a place to explore what fashion is, and how it affects us” underlines Kaat Debo, director of MoMu.

THE ROUTE OF THE EXHIBITION

The itinerary of the exhibition begins with Man Ray 's first sculptures, exhibited in the first room of the exhibition: Obstruction (1920) a mass of suspended wooden coat hangers, L'Énigme d'Isidore Ducasse (1920), a sewing machine wrapped in a covered with a lace that evokes the works Christo and Jeanne-Claude, and Cadeau (1921), an iron with 14 nails on its underside, all everyday objects transformed together with clothing into something unpredictable and surprising. In dialogue with these works a sculpture created by Martin Margiela in 1991, a coat stand in silver thread whose shadow creates the outline of a breast. Man Ray would certainly have appreciated how the exhibition highlights not only his passion for “ readymades ”, but also his obsession with the female body. In 1924, Man Ray's first fashion shots were published in French Vogue, yet he confessed that he was more interested in models than in what they wore. At the beginning of his career Man Ray dedicated himself to photographing important designers, artists and socialites such as Peggy Guggenheim, Coco Chanel, Elsa Schiaparelli, Méret Oppenheim (creator of the 'furry teacup'), Luisa Casati and Nancy Cunard for Vogue and Harper's Bazaar. “Man Ray loved beautiful women more than the clothes they wore,” laughs exhibition curator Romy Cockx.

The exhibition places emphasis on the enormous personalities of these women and the clothes they wore and how they influenced today's fashion. A powerful double exposure image by Paolo Roversi for Acne Paper features Tilda Swinton dressed as Luisa Casati, mimicking the expressions in her portrait of Man Ray displayed alongside dresses inspired by two of her most important loves: American photographer Lee Miller and French model and writer Kiki de Montparnasse (Phoebe Philo created a red and white sweater for Céline in homage to Miller, John Galliano created a pale pink dress in de Montparnasse's honour).

Subsequently, in a section dedicated to the female body, Man Ray's view on women becomes a little darker. “He was interested in the Marquis de Sade and sadism,” explains Cockx. Inspired by the Surrealists' erotic obsession with mannequins, Man Ray creates images of them tightly wrapped in rope, and a woman wearing a pair of pantyhose so that she appears without arms or legs. This practice of isolating parts of the female body produced one of Man Ray's most famous and beloved images: Les Armes (1932), where a woman looks up with one eye at her lashes coated in thin black mascara.

The order of the works on display has been designed to offer the observer an authentic journey into the artist's vision. The installation creates a narrative flow that allows you to immerse yourself in the different phases of his career and his experiments. It starts from the first works, which show the influence of Dadaism and Surrealism, passing through the iconic portraits of famous personalities of his time and arriving at the revolutionary images that redefined the very concept of fashion photography. Fundamental is the continuous dialogue created between photographs and placed garments, a visual union that underlines Man Ray's surreal vision and creative talent in capturing the essence of fashion through the lens of his camera.