Man Ray, African Art, and the Modernist Lens

The current special exhibition at the Phillips seems to be a "slow read", it has taken me several weeks of seeing the work on a regular basis to start to really get it. or maybe I am just a slow reader. Either way, there is a lot more going on in Man Ray, African Art, and the Modernist Lens than what a quick walk through reveals. Or, for that matter, than what the docents reveal. My first response to the show was that it is just all about fashion photography and combining art with popular culture. Many of the photographs depict famous 1920s models that some of the museum visitors recognize and get pretty excited about. But there are a few more levels of the show that might attract different crowds. After wandering around the floor and exploring all the rooms, I realized that perhaps the most important part of the exhibition is the map of Africa that is tucked back in the corner of a small room. It is titled something like European Colonialization of Africa in the Early 20th Century. I was surprised to see that less than a century ago, almost no area of Africa was considered an independent entity. Big fat Dutch, French, German, and English fingers are everywhere. So this puts an interesting spin on the photograph of the smiling, shirtless young woman with the slightly dark skin and slightly frizzy hair as she poses with what looks to be an important ceremonial headdress resting on her own carefully styled coif. I won't go into all the unspeakably horrible issues associated with colonialism in Africa, especially stories about childen being thrown into diamond mines to work and never let out until they just die in those dark holes. (see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcKC6wil0Sg&feature=related for a good overview)
So there is that darker, less discussed historical aspect of the exhibition. And I recently just realized a third aspect of the show that I am really enjoying....the actual sculptures! At first I could only read them as reference props for understanding the photographs. But now I am noticing that some of them are really powerful objects. I spent a solid five minutes staring at one small statue with a painted face, and he won the staring contest. Very creepy little dude.
So this is actually a pretty great show, but if you do go see it, for god's sake don't lean on the cases...it will really piss off the guards.