Man Ray (Emanuel Radnitsky)
[Artist, b. 1890, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, d. 1976, Paris.]
I am not one of those who say: “That water can is blue, that house is pink,” or those who say: “Nothing is beautiful but truth, only truth is pleasant.” There are better things to do in life than copy... Isn’t it this perpetual mania of imitation that prevents man from being a god?
All the nineteenth century painters were against photography, because they were afraid it would take their bread and butter away from them. Once, Ingres was asked what he thought about photography and he answered: “I think it’s wonderful, but you mustn’t say so.”
[Solarization] allowed me to get away from photography, to get away from banality.
An original is a creation motivated by desire. Any reproduction of an original is motivated by necessity. It is marvelous that we are the only species that creates gratuitous forms. To create is divine, to reproduce is human.
Everything is related to photography, because it all has to be photographed in the end.
No plastic expression can ever be more than a residue of an experience.
Taste and opinion cannot replace intelligence and knowledge.
I do not photograph nature. I photograph my fantasy.
