"Unconcerned but Not Indifferent" reads the gravestone epitaph of American-born artist Man Ray, who was buried in his adopted hometown, Montparnasse, Paris. The same phrase is used for the title of an exhibition of the enigmatic artist now showing at the National Art Center, Tokyo. It can be applied to the artist's own consciousness of his legacy. An outsider who flourished as an insider of one of Europe's most vibrant scenes, Man Ray once said he had chosen "to walk between the chasms of notoriety and oblivion."
His ambition, however, was clear from an early age. Born Emmanual Radnitzky, he literally made a name for himself in 1911 when he signed "Man Ray" to a modernist collage of cloth scraps, gathered from the workplace of his Russian immigrant parents. Both an acknowledgment and farewell to his roots, it was also a wise branding decision, as his name stands today as one of modern art's most recognized.
Looming large in his legacy are the groundbreaking rayographs, the iconic lips of "A l'heure de l'observatoire — Les Amoureux" and the sultry cello-motifed back of his cherished model/lover Kiki de Montparnasse. These works, though, are but drops in a deep ocean, as Man Ray was manically prolific in a wide range of media, which included photography, painting, drawing, assemblage, objet d'art, sculpture and filmmaking.