The exhibition was designed by a team of several cu- rators: Xavier Rey, director of the Musées de Marseille, where the exhibition was previously presented in two parts, Catherine Örmen, curator and fashion historian and Alain Sayag, honorary curator at the Musée National d Art Moderne. This work enabled visitors to discover how Man Ray renewed fashion photography and how he brought a new vision of inventiveness and freedom for the glory of the model and the garments. His strange compositions, reframings, plays of shadow and light, solarisations, colourisations and other technical experi- ments helped create striking, dreamlike images in par- ticularly innovative layouts. The artist therefore brought a new vision of dreams and desire to fashion and took fashion photography to a new and prestigious level. A figure of the avant-garde, Man Ray was highly influen- tial in shaping the mass culture that emerged through fashion and advertising.
In a scenographic path designed by Nathalie Crinière, the exhibition presented a broad selection of photo- graphs vintage prints as well as large-format contem- porary prints forming a dialogue with several haute couture pieces and film footage evoking fashion in the 1920s and 1930s, where hair and make-up featured prominently. Fashion magazines were also a central focus on the visitors path, highlighting their major role in the ever-expanding dissemination of this new aesthetic. The dispersed and rare photos brought together under one roof made this exhibition an exceptional event. This very first photographic exhibition at the Musée du Luxembourg was supported by La Vallée Village.
Despite the covid context and the limited number of visitors authorised, the exhibition was warmly welcomed with 28,343 visitors attending over the 37 days period.
56