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Meticulous artists have been known to rip up their canvases when their work isn't perfect. But the American artist Man Ray took a different approach.
While working late in his Paris darkroom in 1921, the artist inadvertently placed some glass equipment on top of an unexposed sheet of photographic paper. Eventually, a phantom image formed, captivating his attention and spurring a new form he called rayographs. These pieces are among 160 works featured in a new show at The Metropolitan Museum of Art. Man Ray: When Objects Dream will be on view from September 14 through February 1, 2026.
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This exhibition is the first major show exploring rayographs, a type of cameraless photograph emblematic of Man Ray's radical experimentation. The Met's show opens with a collection of 12 rayographs called Champs délicieux (Delicious Fields), all black-and-white and arranged in a tight grid on a wall. Featuring everyday objects like a comb and a key, they look almost like 2011-era Instagram grid.
They looked startlingly new and mysterious.
As he wrote in his 1963 autobiography, "Before my eyes an image began to form, not quite a simple silhouette of the objects as in a straight photograph, but distorted and refracted ... In the morning I examined the results, pinning a couple of the Rayographs as I decided to call them on the wall. They looked startlingly new and mysterious."
The title of the show, When Objects Dream, references a line from poet Trista Tzara who was witness to some of Man Ray's earliest rayographs. Indeed, the exhibition feels dreamlike as it moves from in a loosely chronological fashion through the artist's work, from paintings to photographs and sculptures to more conceptual works. The show also underscores Man Ray's connections to Dada and Surrealist movements. A section of botanical prints references so-called "sun prints," the origins of the rayograph.
A professional provocateur, a true visionary, a manipulator in process.
Conceptual pieces were a part of Man Ray's practice from the very beginning. Take a moment to appreciate his Revolving Doors, a series of colorful collages presented on a rotating stand (yes, you can spin it!). The artist also had a sense of humor, as seen in his 1920s Catherine Barometer. The piece could indicate either a chance in air pressure or the unpredictable moods of its namesake.
New Yorkers in particular should keep an eye out for a piece called NOT RESPONSIBLE FOR GOODS LEFT OVER THIRTY DAYS. The piece, inspired by a sign found in the trash, features a photograph of Man Ray's studio at 47 West Eighth Street in 1920.
You'll even get to see objects from the artist's studios over the years, as well as facsimilies of film strips he produced. As he described it, "I went into my darkroom and cut up the [film] into short lengths, pinning them down on the worktable. On some of the strips I sprinkled salt and pepper, like a cook preparing a roast, on other strips I thew pins and thumbtacks at random; then turned on the white light for a second or two."
This supposed accident, now the stuff of legend, is pivotal in understanding the artist Met CEO Max Hollein describes as "enigmatic."
"A professional provocateur, a true visionary, a manipulator in process, in context and meaning of art," Hollein said at a press preview for the show. "He is known to be so experimental that he pushed really the limits of photography, but also painting, of sculpture, of film, of what art is, how art can be done and how art can come together."