Rather than shooting an object, it is better to shoot an idea; Instead of shooting an idea, it is better to shoot a dream.
— Man Ray
與其拍攝一個東西,不如拍攝一個意念;與其拍攝一個意念,不如拍攝一個幻夢。
—— 曼·雷
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Man Ray (born Emmanuel Radnitzky, 1890-1976) is an American modernist artist who spent most of his career in Paris, France. He has been a significant contributor to the Dada and Surrealist movements, although his ties to each were informal. He produced major works in a variety of media but considered himself as a painter above all. Man Ray is best known in the art world for his avant-garde photography, and he is a renowned fashion and portrait photographer. Ray is also noted for his work with photograms, which he called “rayographs” in reference to himself.
曼·雷(原名伊曼紐爾·拉德尼茨基,1890-1976)是一位美國現代主義藝術家,在法國巴黎度過了自己大部分職業生涯。他為達達主義運動和超現實主義運動作出了巨大的貢獻,儘管他並沒有正式地參與這兩次運動。他的作品多見於各種類型的媒體中,但他自認為是一位畫家。曼·雷因他的先鋒派攝影而為人所知,他同時也是一位有聲望的時裝攝影師和肖像攝影師。曼雷也因他對“物影照片(rayograph/photogram)”的發展做出的貢獻而著名。
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Man Ray is the first artist in the history whose photography works have attained far more value than other art types that he was capable of. And he is also the world’s first art explorer that extensively used special techniques for photography creation. Many of the photographic techniques still popular and widely applied today are founded by Man Ray. Having greatly expanded the photographic art field and opened up an unprecedented new world, Man Ray is therefore deemed as one of the most significant pioneers in the history of contemporary photography.
曼·雷是有史以來第一個攝影作品價值遠遠超越其他所擅長的藝術形式的藝術家,他也是世界上最早廣泛運用攝影的特殊技法來進行攝影創作的藝術探索者,許多今天仍然流傳不衰的攝影技法就是由他始創的。他大大擴展了攝影藝術的領域,開闢了一片前所未有的新天地,因而被認為是當代攝影史上最重要的先驅之一。
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Man Ray, who has been involved in the Dada and Surrealist art activities, is a restless photographic technique experimenter as well as a photographic artist. He experimented without camera with some objects placed directly between the light source and light-sensitive materials as to create a photo from the outline and shadow transmission. This kind of photo without negative is known later on as “rayograph” or “photogram”. Darkroom processing and multiple exposure were also employed to merge disorderly together unrelated images that were deformed, omitted, anti-logic or hyper-normal to create the peculiarity between reality and fantasy, figurative and abstract, and an absurd and mysterious realm of art. The images have been filled with certain symbolic and suggestive meanings to make the contents of the works shine but not defined.
曼·雷是一位曾參與達達派和超現實主義派藝術活動的、不知疲倦的攝影技術試驗家和攝影藝術家。他曾嘗試不用照相機,而是將某些物體直接置於光源和感光材料之間,通過輪廓、陰影的透射製作成照片。後人將這種不用底片的“照片”稱為“曼·雷式照片(rayograph)”或“物影照片(photogram)”。他還曾利用暗房加工、多次曝光等特技將一些互不關聯的影像或變形、或省略,反邏輯、超常態地錯亂組合在一起,創造一種現實與夢幻、具象與抽象之間的奇特,荒誕而又神秘的“藝術境界”。畫面充滿著某種象徵性和暗示性,使作品內涵閃爍而不確定。
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The subjects Man Ray took photography of include Pablo Picasso wearing matador costume, Tristan Tzara with a monocle, drunken Sinclaire Lewis, Marcel Duchamp as a drag queen, Francis Picabia sitting in the car holding the steering wheel, James Joyce hand covering his eyes away from the light. There are also photographs of Henri Matisse, Georges Braque, Constantin Brancusi, etc.
曼·雷拍過穿鬥牛士服裝的畢加索(Pablo Picasso)、戴單片眼鏡的特里斯丹·匝拉(Tristan Tzara)、醉態畢露的辛克萊·劉易士(Sinclaire Lewis)、男扮女裝的杜尚(Marcel Duchamp)、坐在汽車方向盤後的畢卡比亞(Francis Picabia)、用手遮眼睛擋光的喬伊斯(James Joyce),還有馬蒂斯(Henri Matisse)、勃拉克(Georges Braque)、布朗庫(Constantin Brancusi)等等。
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PHOTOGRAPHIC WORK
Photography is born to be a surreal art form. However, the works of Man Ray project a unique point of view, that is, photography lies in the scale balance point liberating the surreal and preserving the everyday existence. It is a two-dimensional space scale where the left and right ends possess a strong contrast. To take Kiki in Le Violon d’Ingres, one of Man Ray’s most famous photographs as an example, the woman Kiki in a turban and a piece of cloth, with her back marked with the f-shaped sound holes of a stringed music instrument, seems to suggest the fiddler’s dream has come true. Thus the surreal transformation is earmarked for completion. The uniqueness of Man Ray in the history of photography is not only because of the prominent labels on him, but also of the prominent fact that when he was regarded as a master photographer, he felt embarrassed by the excessive enthusiasm. Man Ray paid more attention to his own art achievements, and often mentioned photography in an irrespectful way, saying “I do not particularly consider myself as a photographer, because for me to be a photographer is merely a means rather than an aim. It is like I often drive because I love having a ride, but it does not mean I want to become a driver.”
攝影作品
攝影天生就屬於超現實的藝術,但曼·雷的作品提供了一個特殊的觀點,那就是攝影處在一個解放超現實和保存日常所見的天秤支點,而這是個二維空間的天秤,左右有著強有力的對比以
琦琦(Kiki), 《Le Violon d’Ingres》這張他最有名的照片之一為例,照片中女人背部複製了的樂器音箱縫細的記號,頭巾與布幔,似乎提琴手的夢想已經勾勒成真,於此超現實主義的轉化於焉完成。曼·雷在攝影史上的特別,並不僅僅因為他身上的一些顯赫標籤,他最突出的地方在於當他被視作一個攝影大師時,他卻為這種過分的熱情感到尷尬。曼·雷更注重自己的藝術成就,他常常說出一些對攝影並不恭敬的話,“我自己並不特別地認為自己是攝影師。因為對我來說,攝影術只是用於表現的手段而已,它不是目的。我因為喜歡兜風而經常開車,但我自己並不想成為一個駕駛員。”
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