African Art Club

Man Ray African Art and the Modernist Lens

Man Ray, African Art, and the Modernist Lens ~ Wendy A. Grossman

Washington October 10, 2009-January 10, 2010

Man Ray, Simone Kahn (with Vanuatu male figure, eastern Malekula), c.1927. © 2009 Man Ray Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), NY / ADAGP, Paris

Man Ray translated the 20th-century modernist taste for African art into photographs that reached a popular audience. About 60 of his photographs, many never before exhibited, along with more than 40 photographs by his contemporaries, including Cecil Beaton, Walker Evans, and Alfred Stieglitz, will appear side-by-side with 20 of the African objects featured in the images. The exhibition explores the pivotal role of these photographs in shaping the perception of non-Western objects as fine art. Man Ray, African Art and the Modernist Lens is organized by International Arts and Artists.