Man Ray: When Objects Dream
by Juliana Kolc-Dass
October 15, 2025
by Juliana Kolc-Dass
October 15, 2025
Man Ray. “The Kiss.” The Metropolitan Museum of Art, 1922. Gelatin silver print. Https://www.metmuseum.org/exhibitions/man-ray-when-objects-dream/exhibition-objects.
Inspired by and titled after “The Kiss” by Gustav Klimt, Man Ray’s hazy black-and-white image mimics the painting’s visual elements through composition. The photograph captures two individuals frozen in a kiss that’s entirely reflected by an abstract layout. The pair’s faces are unrecognizable, blurred, and obstructed like shadows. White light intensifies through their hands, physically embodying a potential power dynamic or unrequited love. “The Kiss” is now on view at The Metropolitan Museum of Art as part of an extensive exhibition of Man Ray’s work, “When Objects Dream.”
Man Ray was an artistic visionary, shifting an artistic paradigm through radical experimentation in the early 20th century. He invented the Rayograph, a darkroom technique that forms an image without the use of a camera. From his time in Paris spent with Marcel Duchamp, a conceptual artist who utilized arbitrary items in his work, Ray transformed this phenomenon. By placing objects directly onto light-sensitive paper and exposing them to light, he contributed to the surrealist initiative to depict imaginative truth, blurring the line between objects, bodies, and dreams.
Ray needed to break the rules to fully embrace the experimental practice: “I deliberately dodged all the rules, mixed the most insane products together, committed heinous crimes against chemistry and photography.” This was a critical risk that enabled him to tap into conceptual powers — ideas that connect the objects in his work to dreamlike or out-of-body experiences, as poet Tristan Tzara would best describe it. His goal was to distort and refract as it brought forth new, mysterious ideas regarding reality. Rather than reality being a deliberate way of discovering truth, it was shaped by the unconscious mind. It could be dismantled into a symbolic figure, a negotiable tactic tested by these images.
Ray redefined photography as an artistic medium rather than a basic tool to capture images. His peculiar compositions resonated with people on a deeper level, unearthing the part of society that remained silent, that defied conformity. Ray’s work rose to a higher plane, ensuring photography’s role as a catalyst for imagination rather than just a way to share ordinary representations of everyday scenes. His vast body of work highlights the scale of a process so pivotal to breaking perceptual boundaries in the photographic medium.
“When Objects Dream” is on display at The Metropolitan Museum of Art until February 1st, 2026.