A spokesperson describes the event as follows:
“...Man Ray: When Objects Dream at The Metropolitan Museum of Art is the first major exhibition to examine the media-crossing, radical experimentation of American artist Man Ray (1890–1976) through one of his most significant bodies of work, the rayograph. Man Ray coined the term rayograph to name his version of the 19th-century technique of making photographs without a camera. He created them by placing objects on or near a sheet of light-sensitive paper, which he then exposed to light and developed. These photograms—as they are also called—appear as reversed silhouettes, or negative versions, of their subjects. They often feature recognizable items that become wonderfully mysterious in the artist's hands. Their transformative nature led the Dada poet Tristan Tzara to describe rayographs as capturing the moments “when objects dream.” While Man Ray acknowledged the photographic origins of his new works, he did not think of them as strictly bound by medium. Taking Man Ray’s lead, this presentation will be the first—more than a century since he introduced the rayograph—to situate this signature accomplishment in relation to his larger artistic output..."
