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Man Ray's "Minotaur" — Transcript

by Niki Conley · 1,548 words · 322 segments · language en · Watch on YouTube

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0:00in this video we will be talking about
0:02man rey's photograph
0:04the minotaur
0:09the surrealists were a large and highly
0:11organized avant-garde art movement
0:14its home base was in paris though its
0:17reach was
0:18international the writer andre breton
0:22was its de facto leader who policed the
0:24group's messaging
0:26and its membership in some ways
0:30the group is heavily indebted to the
0:32earlier movement
0:33dada and like dada
0:36surrealism emerged after the first world
0:39war
0:40and has been interpreted as a reaction
0:42against it
0:45the age of enlightenment began in europe
0:48in the 18th century and continued on
0:51into the 19th
0:53the philosophies of the enlightenment
0:56held
0:56that people were inherently rational
0:59beings
1:00who through their ability to discern
1:04and reason were capable of solving all
1:07of the universe's problems
1:10the mass devastation of the first world
1:12war
1:13threw all of that into question
1:16who are these highly rational beings who
1:19led the world
1:21into a war where millions died
1:24and many more suffered the notion
1:27that human beings are rational didn't
1:30seem to explain humanity
1:32any longer increasingly
1:36many intellectuals and artists began to
1:38feel that in fact
1:41humans are inherently irrational
1:45and they employed the field of
1:47psychoanalysis
1:49in order to help understand and explain
1:51human nature
1:53psychoanalysis was a field in psychology
1:57that began in the 19th century but
1:59became
2:00increasingly popular into the 20th
2:04psychoanalyst sigmund freud
2:07argued that the mind was comprised
2:10of discrete parts the conscious mind
2:15that held readily available information
2:18and memory knowledge that could be
2:21accessed
2:22at a moment swim in a waking state
2:25and then there was the unconscious mind
2:28the recesses of the brain that held dark
2:31sexual and violent thoughts bubbling
2:34beneath the surface
2:36of comprehension and reason that
2:38dictated our actions
2:40even when we are unaware of their
2:42presence
2:44the unconscious mind according to freud
2:48is not readily available in a waking
2:51state
2:52for the surrealists and many others
2:56this was in fact a pretty revolutionary
2:59idea
3:01revolutionary in the sense that it was a
3:04great equalizer
3:05suggesting there were all sort of dark
3:08weirdos under it all
3:11the artist man ray was an american
3:14artist
3:14who spent some of his career in new york
3:17but honestly
3:18spent more of it in paris he was friends
3:21with the artists associated with dada
3:23particularly duchamp and picabia
3:28and was also friendly with the
3:29surrealists
3:31his ties to both groups ran deep
3:34but did not hold official membership
3:38that said manray frequently published in
3:41surrealist publications
3:44and his photograph minotaur is about as
3:46surrealist as they come
3:49the symbol of the minotaur was a hugely
3:52important one to the surrealist movement
3:55and in fact minotaur was the name of one
3:58of the surrealists periodicals
4:00you can see a cover here in the bottom
4:03left
4:05the surrealists saw the minotaur as a
4:07perfect
4:08metaphor for the unconscious mind
4:12a cursed humanoid beast forever trapped
4:15in a labyrinth
4:17filled with anger and violence humanoid
4:21but also part bull which was a symbol
4:24of heightened masculine virility
4:28this violent and darkly sexual angry
4:31beast
4:32held captive in a labyrinth is
4:35essentially how freud described the
4:37unconscious
4:40a beast that exists within us all just
4:43below the surface
4:44of accessibility in man ray's photograph
4:48minotaur we see what most would read
4:51as a female torso arms raised above
4:54their head in a gesture that feels quite
4:57powerful
4:58the intense contrast creates a striking
5:02image
5:03where we might imagine ahead is fully
5:06enshrouded in darkness
5:08leaving just a body while we recognize
5:12this body as
5:13human it is simultaneously
5:17the minotaur the nipples become eyes
5:20the concave underside of the rib cage
5:23becomes
5:24a gaping maw the raised arms
5:28become horns the body stares out at us
5:33with a confronting glare
5:37art historians struggle to grapple with
5:40the question of whether we
5:41see this work as empowering or
5:44objectifying
5:46and i think there are good arguments to
5:48both ends
5:51let's first think about whether we might
5:53read this as
5:54empowering we see a figure in an active
5:57position
5:58that feels strong powerful
6:02the photograph seems to subvert gender
6:04expectations
6:06well on the one hand most viewers are
6:09likely to assume this to be
6:11a female torso on the other hand
6:15what we're looking at is an embodiment
6:18of the minotaur
6:19who is associated with highly aggressive
6:22stereotypes about
6:24masculinity and therefore
6:27the categories of male female assumed to
6:30be a binary
6:32are here collapsed into the same image
6:36simultaneously both and rather
6:39than either or the pose of this figure
6:44is not one that we've been accustomed to
6:46seeing in images that are intended to
6:48speak of femininity
6:50typically in art when we're intended to
6:53read
6:54a figure as feminine there is quite
6:57often
6:58an exaggerated emphasis on softness
7:02this body feels bold strong angular
7:07and therefore resisting stereotypes
7:11on the other end of this spectrum i
7:14think it would behoove us to also think
7:16about
7:17whether this image may be in fact
7:20objectifying and there are also really
7:23good arguments
7:25to support that claim
7:28many surrealist artists focus their lens
7:32on images of women who seem devoid of
7:35agency
7:36devoid of the ability to act their
7:39bodies
7:40are often fragmented to an extent that
7:43it implies
7:44dismemberment arguably
7:47the most egregious example of this are
7:50the photographs
7:51taken by hans bellmer a german artist
7:55who became associated with the
7:57surrealist movement
7:59after he moved to paris due to the rise
8:02of fascism in germany
8:04his body of work largely consists of
8:07photographs
8:09of doll parts dismembered and
8:11reassembled
8:12in various combinations
8:15that seem to speak of sexual violence
8:20in manrey's photograph minotaur
8:23here we see a body with literally
8:26no head and therefore no agency
8:29there is no thinking mind there only a
8:32body
8:33devoid of consciousness art historian
8:37marianne cause has argued quite
8:40convincingly
8:42that photographs like this one fetishize
8:45the body
8:46they transform the body into an object
8:50that exists merely for the viewer's
8:52pleasure
8:54and she points out that many men within
8:57the surrealist movement
8:59created their careers on images like
9:01these
9:02that exclusively objectify women
9:05and she argues that these images
9:09are not created for the benefit of any
9:11viewer but rather
9:12are decidedly created for the male gaze
9:16she writes whose pleasure where is it
9:19taken
9:19and from whom she goes on to consider
9:23the gays in art history when we talk
9:26about the gays
9:27in relationship to an image sometimes we
9:30talk about figures within the scene
9:32who seem to look out at us in a way that
9:35suggests power
9:36other times when we talk about the gaze
9:38in art we're talking about
9:40the gaze of the assumed viewer
9:44the way the viewer feels empowered when
9:48they are looking
9:48at an image that's more what we're
9:51thinking about here
9:53she hypothesizes that in art we might
9:57talk about
9:57different kinds of gazes
10:00some images might invite a glance others
10:04might invite which she categorizes as a
10:07stare
10:08she says that surrealist depictions of
10:11women
10:11tend to invite astaire which she defines
10:15as
10:15quote the gays gone hard
10:19that tends toward a certain violence and
10:21will to penetrate
10:25to take this conversation a bit further
10:28it would be worth considering the
10:31historical and cultural reasons
10:34why surrealists may have been
10:36particularly focused on women in their
10:38art
10:40women historically have been stereotyped
10:44as man's irrational other whereas men
10:48have been historically understood in the
10:50west
10:51to be the producers of culture rational
10:54beings who are
10:55fully in control of their emotions and
10:58women
10:59have been stereotyped in western culture
11:02as irrational beings
11:06whose minds and bodies are weaker and
11:08more susceptible
11:10to both physical and mental illnesses
11:13for centuries this was discussed under
11:15the pseudoscientific label
11:17of hysteria indeed the history of
11:21psychoanalysis
11:22cannot be divorced from the history of
11:24hysteria and the mistreatment of women
11:27within psychoanalytic institutions
11:30like the psychoanalytic theorists they
11:32were reading
11:34surrealists held that women were prone
11:37to irrationality
11:39and therefore lurked closer to the
11:42unconscious
11:44in conclusion surrealism was a large
11:47highly organized
11:48avant-garde that was in many ways
11:51a reaction against the lingering effects
11:54of the enlightenment period
11:56and emerged in the wake of the first
11:58world war
11:59it was conceived as a revolutionary
12:02notion
12:04that humans were inherently irrational
12:07were flawed and were swayed by dark
12:10forces
12:11that we are not consciously privy to
12:14surrealist
12:15artists sought to capture this notion of
12:18the unconscious
12:20in their imagery through various
12:23strategies
12:24one popular trend within surrealist
12:27photography
12:28was to create strange and unsettling
12:30images
12:31of women's bodies who were understood as
12:35being closer to a state
12:37of the irrational the unconscious
12:40in man raised minotaur one could argue
12:43that what we're seeing here
12:45is a radical image that we're seeing a
12:48symbolic
12:49embodiment of the minotaur a dark
12:53force trapped in a labyrinth waiting to
12:56explode out
12:58man ray subverts gender expectations
13:01collapsing male and female which are
13:04assumed to be a binary
13:06hear into a single image and yet
13:10we could also argue as marianne caused
13:13us
13:14that this work is highly objectifying
13:16this is a body with no
13:18agency no conscious awareness and
13:21moreover
13:22plays on century-old stereotypes about
13:25women
13:26as being prone to so-called hysteria
13:29a stereotype that has done real violence
13:32to women throughout history

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