Man Ray's Los Angeles Years Explored in Gagosian Exhibition

Gagosian Beverly Hills presented an exhibition of Man Ray's photographs from his 11-year stay in Los Angeles, running from 11 January to 17 February 2018. The show featured 27 silver gelatin prints, primarily studio portraits, despite the artist's stated intention to focus on painting after fleeing occupied France in 1940. A 1943 self-portrait with half a beard, used to illustrate his essay 'Photography is Not Art' in View magazine, highlighted his ambivalence toward the medium. Portraits included figures like Isamu Noguchi from 1941, actresses Ava Gardner and Leslie Caron from 1950, and dancer Tilly Losch from 1946, with techniques such as solarisation, originally discovered by Lee Miller, applied to images like that of Ruth Ford. The selection revealed Man Ray's commercial photography work, which he resented as a funding source, and his struggles in Hollywood, where he rejected roles like special-effects man. His 1948 exhibition at Copley Galleries in Beverly Hills was titled To Be Continued Unnoticed, reflecting his lack of assimilation in America, leading to his return to Paris in 1951. The photographs also underscored gender dynamics, with women often objectified compared to men like Roberto Rossellini or Jean Renoir, and explored identity construction through personas and staged scenes, such as a fake Parisian backdrop with Marcel Duchamp in 1948.