A collection of African art and modernist photography, “Man Ray, African Art and the Modern Lens” at The Phillips Collection provides a look — through the photographers’ lens — into 20th century art as it embraced African culture. Over 100 photographs are on display, some of which are the work of Man Ray. In addition to the photographs, West and Central African art is sprinkled throughout the exhibit, sometimes with the original next to its photographed twin. The camera lens transformed these everyday objects into subjects of art, manipulated by modernist elements, such as cubism and later surrealism.

Modernist interest in African art, an alternative to the naturalism that influenced notables like Pablo Picasso, allowed African art to be seen as fine art and not just artifacts. Not until 1914 with an exhibit in Alfred Stieglitz’s 291 Gallery did the art world recognize African art, and not in ethnographic terms like one would see at a natural history museum. Most pieces were the spoils of European colonialism, much like the photographs at the beginning of the Phillips exhibit, which feature still-lifes of everyday, utilitarian objects viewed as art for their exotic appeal.
As a breakthrough medium, photography could exploit and enhance the angles and forms present in African art. Comparing the original African sculpture with its film twin provides a new, completely different perspective on the object.

Featured right next to the original statue, Charles Sheeler’s photograph of “Male Figure from Reliquary Ensemble” displays an incredible dichotomy. He extracts certain spatial elements from the religious statue that he exaggerates in a modernist tribute. The fractured shadows on the wall behind the statue are especially cubist, throwing off its sense of order. Sheeler plays with photographic elements, such as utilizing multiple light sources and distorting focal perspective, to portray the barely 2-foot-tall figure as an imposing behemoth. To the viewer, the statue’s importance derives from the onslaught of formal effects, rather than from the inherent purpose of the figure itself.

However entranced the artists were with the magic of their avant-garde photography, they also imbued a sense of mysticism in the object. While a natural religious significance was cast on these objects, the artists and viewers explored it more as an outsider looking in. The nature of most of the photographs in the collection indicates the artists’ infatuation with the exotic and their assumptions about the artifacts as ritual devices.
Photographs such as Sheeler’s statue, which was detached from its original function, is now celebrated merely for its artistic form. Modernist photographers heighten, sensationalize and aggrandize the African object, divorcing it from its original cultural and religious purposes. This sacrilege, while indicative of the Dadaist irreverence toward everything, shows the Western ignorance in their perception of African culture as well.

As interest in African art grew even to the mainstream, artists — most notably Man Ray — evolved the modernist perspective to feature a highly manipulated surrealism. Modernist photography exploited the African arts’ exoticism, translating it through the lens into a medium of shock and stylized sexuality.

Roger Parry’s untitled photograph shows an African mask with solarization, or extreme overexposure, which distorts the picture. The image is disturbing, with long, curling fingers reminiscent of the character E.T. holding the mask. While most certainly surreal, the effect of this experimentation does not just question the rules of art, but at the same time also trivializes African art. It makes a monster out of the tribal mask.

A foremost reveler of abstract surrealism and the celebrity of the exhibit, Man Ray took modernist interest in African art to new heights. Man Ray’s accidental discovery of the photogram, which he dubbed the “rayograph,” was created by placing objects on photosensitive paper and exposing it to varying levels of light. In one such “rayograph,” the forms of African artifacts can be seen suspended in shadows and the ghostly whispers of photographic negatives. This is Man Ray’s artistic experimentation at its best, slightly unhinged and full of raw creative invention.

He was best known, however, for his mix of sexuality with the surreal, and no Man Ray exhibit would be complete without that. These are the pieces that one would expect from an exhibit of his, although they only comprise a few of all the photographs and appear at the end of the exhibit.

In Simone Kahn, a Vanuatu figure sits on the model’s stomach as she lounges, looking dead-on into the camera. She grips the figure fiercely. The piece portrays a juxtaposition of intriguing opposites — her languid body contrasts her rigid grip, just as the angular African figure opposes Simone’s western beauty. The tension of her eyes and of her firm grasp are central to the photograph. The patent sexuality of this image resonated with the savagery that European society still associates with African culture.

The highlight of this exhibit is one of Man Ray’s more famous photographs, “Noir et Blanche.” Multiple versions are shown, collectively dubbed “The Many Lives of Noir et Blanche,” with each subject to varying artistic manipulations. The subject Blanche, played by Kiki de Montparnasse — Man Ray’s lover and muse — is shown with her face, pure white and rounded in the quintessential western ideal as she rests against the long, angular polished face of an Ivory Coast mask.

The negative of “Noir et Blanche” reverses the original, making Kiki the darkened figure next to the bleached-out mask. The textural contrast is heightened as the carved feathers of the mask’s headdress pop out. Kiki, her face now black, has her features more defined as well, with her milky painted lips emerging from the darkness. Another “Noir et Blanche” variant features a softened Kiki with a sultry expression of longing and melancholy. Next to her face, she hugs the Noir mask, whose fierce stoicism contradicts Blanche’s stylized melodrama.

The stylized surrealism shocks as the everyday functional objects are transformed into Dadaist subjects of exploitation. The progression from photography of collected objects to dramatic sensationalism to highly stylized surrealism reflects how the perceived exoticism of the objects compounded with each artistic wave.

While the modernist movement did much to make African art a part of the Western consciousness, an air of colonialism still remains. The patronizing 20th century paradigm, and the modernist photographer alike, saw the objects of African culture as exotic and primitive. This is evident in the photographs and most disturbingly in an excerpt from a 1930s Harper’s Bazaar entitled “The Bushongo of Africa Sends his Hats to Paris,” featuring photographs by Man Ray of models donning the hats. Although appreciative of the intricate beading, the condescension is overwhelming: “the lowly bead … luxury of the poor, delight of the simple-minded.” The article even goes on to say, “The desire to be beautiful — that is, to be looked at — is the life and blood of these blacks. They are no more ashamed to be naked than to wear magnificently mad costumes.”

Modernist photography’s role in the commodification of African culture did not break away from societal norms of viewing the African culture as inferior or at least something to be admired. The exhibit forces one to see that while the modern artist glorified their rejection of society and successfully did that aesthetically through the inventiveness of their photographs, they contradicted themselves by submitting to the culture of colonialism. Nonetheless, see the exhibit for a glimpse into this paradigm as well as the shocking photographs it produced.