Indestructible Object
In 1922, Man Ray created a piece titled Object to be Destroyed from a metronome and a photograph of an eye. In a 1956 Paris exhibition the piece was destroyed by angry viewers who considered the work meaningless. The artist immediately created a duplicate, which he named Indestructible Object, to show that the idea behind the work could never be erased. Further replicas have been known as Lost Object, Last Object (due to a printer's error), and Motif Perpétue. The piece was reproduced so many times that it developed a life of its own, demanding the value of "original" art and craftsmanship in the true spirit of Dada. The one-eyed metronome even appeared on a political poster in Hamburg with the slogan "Choose the right beat," an ironic use of the image that Man Ray would have approved.
"Other contraptions of mine have been destroyed by visitors; not always through ignorance nor by accident, but willfully, as a protest. But I have managed to make them indestructible, that is, by making duplicates very easily." Man Ray, "Self Portrait," 1963 (Smithsonian American Art Museum)
Indestructible Object
1965 (replica of destroyed 1923 original)
Man Ray, (American, 1890-1976)Indestructible Object combines a metronome with a photograph of the eye of Lee Miller, Man Ray's erstwhile studio assistant and lover. Man Ray smashed the original version of this sculpture with a hammer, an act motivated by both desire and aggression.Object Details
Title: Indestructible Object
Date: 1965 (replica of destroyed 1923 original)
Artist: Man Ray, (American, 1890–1976)
Medium: Metronome with photograph
Dimensions: 8 5/8 x 4 3/8 x 4 1/2 inches (21.9 x 11.1 x 11.4 cm)
Classification: Sculpture
Credit Line: Gift of the Friends of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, 1971
Accession Number: 1971-41-7
Geography: Made in France, Europe (Philadelphia Museum of Art)
Object to Be Destroyed, 1923 by Man Ray
Man Ray re-created this work multiple times after making the original. The piece was first intended as a silent witness in Ray's studio - watching him paint. In the second version, which was published in the avant-garde journal This Quarter, in 1932, Ray substituted the eye of Lee Miller, his former lover, after she left him and married a successful Egyptian businessman. He wanted to attack Miller by "breaking her up" in his works that feature her, and thus this second version, called Object of Destruction, was accompanied by the following instructions: "Cut out the eye from a photograph of one who as 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 limit of endurance. With a hammer well-aimed, try to destroy the whole at a single blow."
At an exhibition in 1957, a group of students followed the instructions and destroyed the object. It was later reconstructed and made into multiples using money Man Ray received from the insurance. He renamed the work Indestructible Object. (ManRay.Net)
Man Ray
Perpetual Motif
Perpetual Motif (Motif Perpétuel), 1970/71
Readymade wooden metronome with lenticular photographPhotography9 1/2 x 4 1/2 x 4 inSigned, 33 from an edition of 40 (mutualart.com)
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