Dive deep, for the first time, into Man Ray’s career-long obsession with chess-themed artworks and their influence on international Modernism.Authorized by The Man Ray Trust,
Permanent Attraction: Man Ray & Chess is the first and only book on Man Ray’s chess-themed works in all media. With experience in studio art, chess, photography, cartography, prototyping, and scholarly research, the author offers a comprehensive interpretation of when, how, and why Man Ray created these timeless works.
Man Ray’s chess set designs are as sought after as his innovative photography, collected by everyone from the Maharajah of Indore to Igor Stravinsky, Artie Shaw, and David Bowie. Today, Man Ray’s chess-themed works are in the collections of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, the Museum of Modern Art, the Museum of the Art Institute of Chicago, Centre Georges Pompidou, the Philadelphia Museum of Art, and numerous other institutions, as well as being highly prized by private collectors the world over.
Larry Listis an independent writer and curator of Dada, Surreal, and chess-related art. His exhibitions include
The Imagery of Chess Revisited,
The Art of Chess,
Man Ray & Sherrie Levine, and
John Cage & Glenn Kaino. He has written catalog essays for The Noguchi Museum, The Menil Collection, The Tate Modern, The Andy Warhol Museum, and many others.
"Both learned and sumptuous. List does a marvelous job of placing Ray’s work in the context of both the avant-garde and its influence on later artists."
Permanent Attractiondoesn't just expand our understanding of Man Ray's career--it shifts it into new realms of industrial production methods, formal invention, and relationships formed through chess.
"Larry List is the chess grandmaster of Man Ray studies. Permanent Attraction is jam-packed with championship-level scholarship.&lC+
![Permanent Attraction: Man Ray Chess: Dada Surrealist Chess Art [Hardcover]](/itemImage/2/7/7/3/2_6935375.jpg "Permanent Attraction: Man Ray Chess: Dada Surrealist Chess Art [Hardcover]")