Return to Reason (Retour a la Raison)

Description

In the 1923 silent short of the same title, Man Ray filmed barely discernible scenes of Paris at night along with his own enigmatic photograms and conglomerations of spiraling or gyrating objects. The resulting sequence of near-total abstractions seems devoid of sense or purpose. The "return to reason" in the film comes finally in the form of a woman's torso—modeled by cabaret personality Kiki de Montparnasse—turning to and fro beside a rain-covered windowpane. Man Ray reproduced the seductive finale, as well as other moments from the film, as photographs, singly and in strips. A still from Man Ray's film, this particular photograph appeared on its own in the first issue of the key avant-garde journal La Révolution surréaliste, in 1924.

Return to Reason (Retour a la Raison)

Man Ray (Emmanuel Radnitzky)

1923

Accession Number

55517

Medium

Gelatin silver print

Dimensions

18.7 × 13.9 cm (image/paper); 32.5 × 26 (mount)

Classification

gelatin silver (developing-out-paper) pr

Museum

The Art Institute of Chicago

Chicago, United States

Credit Line

Julien Levy Collection, Special Photography Acquisition Fund