Remaking the Readymade: Duchamp, Man Ray, and the Conundrum of the Replica (Studies in Surrealism)

Arts & Photography

Kamien-Kazhdan, Adina

History & Criticism

Routledge

Replication and originality are central concepts in the artistic oeuvres of Marcel Duchamp and Man Ray. Remaking the Readymade reveals the underlying and previously unexplored processes and rationales for the collaboration between Duchamp, Man Ray, and Arturo Schwarz on the replication of readymades and objects. The 1964 editioned replicas of the readymades sent shock waves through the art world. Even though the replicas undermined ideas of authorship and problematized the notion of identity and the artist, they paradoxically shared in the aura of the originals, becoming stand-ins for the readymades. Scholar-poet-dealer Arturo Schwarz played a crucial role, opening the door to joint or alternate authorship―an outstanding relationship between artist and dealer. By unearthing previously unpublished correspondence and documentary materials and combining this material with newly conducted exclusive interviews with key participants, Remaking the Readymade details heretofore unrevealed aspects of the technical processes involved in the (re)creation of iconic, long-lost Dada objects. Launched on the heels of the centenary of Duchamp’s Fountain, this new analysis intensifies and complicates our understanding of Duchamp and Man Ray’ initial conceptions, and raises questions about replication and authorship that will stimulate significant debate about the legacy of the artists, the continuing significance of their works, and the meaning of terms such as creativity, originality, and value in the formation of art.

Man Ray's Shakespearean Equations―a series of paintings he considered to be the pinnacle of his creative vision―has long been a puzzle of Surrealism. What meaningful common thread could possibly link Shakespeare, mathematics and art? This volume sets out to unravel the puzzle by beginning with photographs of mathematical models that Man Ray took at the Institut Henri Poincaré in Paris in the 1930s. It then charts the artist's development along a path that culminates with the Shakespearean Equations, a series of oil paintings he made in Hollywood more than a decade later, inspired by that earlier photographic work. The canvases build a bridge from painting back to photography and reveal the ease with which Man Ray moved between various disciplines and forged his own path. An inveterate experimenter, he pioneered artistic activities in the realms of painting, object making, film and photography, challenging conventional boundaries and blurring established aesthetic categories. Man Ray was born Emmanuel Radnitzky in Philadelphia in 1890 and grew up in New York, where he studied art at the National Academy of Design and the Ferrer School. A nomadic soul like his lifelong friend Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray relocated many times throughout his life, worked in many media and likewise stopped short of officially joining the ranks of either Dada or Surrealism, though he was informally close to both movements. Participating in the most groundbreaking formal experiments of the Western modernist avant-garde, Man Ray made Cubist paintings, readymades, camera-less photographs and nonnarrative films (among many other things). He died in 1976 and was buried in the Cimetière du Montparnasse in Paris. His epitaph reads: "unconcerned, but not indifferent."

Man Ray: Human Equations

Grossman, Wendy

Sebline, Edouard

Andrew Strauss

Individual Artists

Hatje Cantz

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