Man Ray: Le Baiser (1930)
The above photograph by Man Ray, featuring his lover, model and muse - the magnificent Lee Miller - kissing an unknown woman (sometimes identified by the mysterious name of Belbourne), is one that I like very much; elements of faux-lesbianism and frigidity always excite my interest more than passionate scenes between genuine lovers prone to emotional excess and that soulful look.
I also find the photogram below of great interest and, in a sense, just as exciting:
Man Ray: Le Baiser, ('Rayograph', 1922)
Also entitled The Kiss, this is one of Man Ray's earliest Rayograms; a technique in which he abandons the camera and experiments with image-making by bringing objects directly into contact with the surface of light-sensitive material, resulting in spooky-looking shadow images (variations in tone indicating the degree of transparency of the objects used).
To create this negative kiss, Man Ray combines the ghostly heads and hands of himself and his mistress at the time, Alice Prin (aka Kiki de Montparnasse); an actress, model, nightclub chanteuse and artist in her own right, who perfectly personified the bohemian culture of Paris in the Twenties.
I suppose the question that arises and which intrigues me most is this: What did Radnitzky, the great American surrealist and son of a tailor, desire most; to fuck his models in the flesh, or capture their ephemeral beauty on film?
Either way, I greatly admire his avant-garde genius and envy him his way with the ladies. Man Ray is an amazing example of a creative, intelligent individual who devotes his life to the joy of erotic and artistic freedom. Insouciant, mais pas indifférent - as it says above his grave, I wish I had but a fraction of his talent, his courage, and his humour.
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