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Lot Essay
Indestructible Object (Think) was created among friends at the Jacobs apartment in New York. In 1966, they hosted a dinner party in Man Ray’s honor. In attendance were William and Noma Copley, Man Ray and Juliet. For the occasion, Roz set the table with a metronome as a center piece. Inspired by one of Man Ray’s most celebrated readymade subjects, Indestructible Object (Think) is a clever collaboration between Man Ray and William Copley facilitated by the Jacobses. For this version, Man Ray drew an eye in pen and ink on a piece of paper and affixed it to the pendulum of the metronome; Copley painted his THINK on a piece of canvas and attached it with a paperclip below the eye. The elements were iconic for each artist: for Man Ray, the eye was inspired by the original version of the object, while for Copley, THINK had great personal significance. When William and Noma Copley married in Paris (with Man Ray as his best man), the clerk had a sign behind him with the word THINK emblazoned on it. Together, the two elements form the phrase, Eye Think.
The metronome is the basis for two of Man Ray’s most celebrated objects: Object to Be Destroyed (1923) and Perpetual Motif (1971). Man Ray first utilized the metronome for a readymade in 1923, around the same time that Marcel Duchamp had finished his Large Glass. The first version of the metronome subject was titled Object to Be Destroyed and included a cut-out photograph of Lee Miller’s eye attached to the pendulum. Later, on the back of a related drawing from 1932, he wrote: “Cut out the eye from the photograph of one who has been loved but is seen no more. Attach the eye to the pendulum of a metronome and regulate the weight to suit the tempo desired. Keep going to the limit of endurance. With a hammer well aimed, try to destroy the whole at a single blow” (D. Tashjian, A Boatload of Mad Men: Surrealism and the American Avant-Garde, New York, 1995, p. 107). At the 1957 Exposition Dada at the Galerie de l'Institut in Paris, a group of students demonstrating against Dada destroyed the object, thus carrying out Man Ray's initial instructions. When the insurance company representative came for the reimbursement he "voiced his suspicion that I might, with this money, buy a whole stock of metronomes. That was my intention, I replied, however I assured him of one thing: I'd change the title" (Man Ray, Self Portrait, Boston, 1988, pp. 306-307).
The metronome is the basis for two of Man Ray’s most celebrated objects: Object to Be Destroyed (1923) and Perpetual Motif (1971). Man Ray first utilized the metronome for a readymade in 1923, around the same time that Marcel Duchamp had finished his Large Glass. The first version of the metronome subject was titled Object to Be Destroyed and included a cut-out photograph of Lee Miller’s eye attached to the pendulum. Later, on the back of a related drawing from 1932, he wrote: “Cut out the eye from the photograph of one who has been loved but is seen no more. Attach the eye to the pendulum of a metronome and regulate the weight to suit the tempo desired. Keep going to the limit of endurance. With a hammer well aimed, try to destroy the whole at a single blow” (D. Tashjian, A Boatload of Mad Men: Surrealism and the American Avant-Garde, New York, 1995, p. 107). At the 1957 Exposition Dada at the Galerie de l'Institut in Paris, a group of students demonstrating against Dada destroyed the object, thus carrying out Man Ray's initial instructions. When the insurance company representative came for the reimbursement he "voiced his suspicion that I might, with this money, buy a whole stock of metronomes. That was my intention, I replied, however I assured him of one thing: I'd change the title" (Man Ray, Self Portrait, Boston, 1988, pp. 306-307).