Man Ray

Man Ray, Objet indestructible (Indestructible object), 1965

Man Ray’s Objet indestructible consists of two elements: a metronome and, attached to its pendulum, a cut-out black-and-white photograph of a woman’s eye. Following Marcel Duchamp’s tradition of the readymade, Man Ray took a mass-produced object as the work’s basis. When activated, the eye would swing rhythmically, suggesting a kind of hypnosis through the eye-to-eye connection with the viewer. Man Ray frequently lost or destroyed his works and then reimagined them in replicas, which he treated as equivalent substitutes. This version of Objet indestructible, made for the 1965 collection of Edition MAT, is one of approximately five examples made between 1940 and 1966 after a missing original of 1923 titled Object to be Destroyed. The 1965 version closely follows a drawing Man Ray made in 1932 that describes a customizable ritual object, in which readers “cut out the eye from a photograph of one who has been loved but is seen no more,” attach it to a metronome, and “with a hammer well-aimed try to destroy the whole in a single blow.” The genesis of the object is thought to reference a failed relationship between Man Ray and the American photographer Lee Miller; it is an image of her eye attached to the metronome.

Image credit

Man Ray (American, 1890–1976), Objet indestructible (Indestructible object), 1965. Metronome, photograph, and paper clip, 40/100, 8 7/16 x 8 7/16 x 4 1/2 in. (21.4 x 21.4 x 11.4 cm). Published by Edition MAT / Galerie Der Spiegel, Cologne. Kern Collection, Großmaischeid, Germany. © Man Ray 2015 Trust / Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York / ADAGP, Paris.