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Man Ray, African Art, and the Modernist Lens

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Man Ray, African Art, and the Modernist Lens, by Wendy Grossman, is not your typical museum exhibition catalogue. Written to accompany a traveling exhibition that opened in Washington at the Phillips Colleciton, this book is an invaluable resource for anyone interested in the history of photography and of new interpretations of "primitivism." Carefully studying photographs of African art--not just by Man Ray but by a host of photographers, many unexpected ones--Grossman places these photographs in the context of modernism. Just as objects from beyond Europe made their way into modernist circles, so, too, did photography, and Grossman draws these parallels convincingly. Especially valuable is the attention Grossman pays to the African objects that drew the photographers' interest. Instead of simply lumping them together as "other," she studies their meaning, their provenance, and why they would have drawn the attention they did at a particular time. A concordance of the objects in the photographs, edited by Letty Wilson Bonnell, is provided at the back of the book to offer further information about the objects. Clearly written and persuasively argued, this book is accessible to expert and layperson alike. This is one of those exhibition catalogues that will live on long after the last photograph or object is shipped back to its lender.

This book is more proof that there is a current Zeitgeist which wants to shed more light on the relationship between "primitive" art and the moderns, a phenomenon that had been forgotten and marginalized for too long. It is difficult to assess today what an impact the native arts of Africa and Oceania had on artists in the early 20th Century, and how and why they could use these esthetic concepts as inspiration and as subversive tools to rock the Status Quo, but this book admirably enlightens and broadens the view on this important step in the evolution of modern art.