Yesterday was the last day of “Lee Miller and Man Ray: Partners in Surrealism” at The Legion of Honor. The exhibit, which highlighted Miller and Ray’s overlapping careers, seems to have garnered mixed reviews. Personally, as a scholar who works on female surrealists, I appreciate the instinct to assert Miller role as an artist and not simply a muse; with a gift shop full of Man Ray books waiting for them at the end of the show, the museum-going public can’t be shown that enough.
I also enjoyed the chance to see some lesser known works, and to read tidbits from Miller/Ray correspondence (that man did not take a break-up well). This Alexander Calder piece, for example, was made for Miller later in life, when she was married to Roland Penrose. It’s called The Weight Lifter (1962), mirroring similar figures in other Calder pieces, it’s made from unwound champagne wire and wax, and it stands maybe three inches tall: one of those tiny gems that perches on an artist’s bookshelves for decades.
At the same time, it was actually my first visit to The Legion of Honor, though I’ve lived here four+ years now, and I was frustrated by the gallery security. I got yelled at for not handing over my ticket while in line to hand over my ticket. I got yelled at for having an out-of-date bus pass on my up-to-date student ID. I got yelled at for asking if photography was allowed. And I got yelled at because I was so interested in a sculpture an attendant decided I must have snuck in. Since when does that work that way?
Which brings me to the best part of The Weight Lifter. You see the small, hinged genitals — the ones that take the place of a face for this otherwise headless man? They move. If you walk past the sculpture, you don’t notice. But get up close, peer through the protective plexiglass box, and tap your foot in frustration as you get suspiciously eyed by a security guard and voilà: sway, sway, sway, the rhythmic motion of a body struggling to hold a great weight, or thrusting triumphantly have succeeded. I love the idea that the kinetic element of this piece is so subtle as to be nearly secret, and that only the patient (and anxious) museum-goer will see the joke.
So thank you, Legion of Honor museum security, for suspecting me of being a surrealism-loving terrorist. Calder and I both wag a, er, finger at you for drawing a hard, social line between those moved by art and the art that moves (and moves with) them.
