Flavio, Oliviero (Toscani) and I, a novice editor facing what I thought would be a thorny interview full of difficulties. His atelier was a verrière, a small glass pavilion at the back of a courtyard. The transparent roof barely filtered the raindrops, helped by the tarpaulin beneath, around which a pigeon flitted, relieving itself freely. Then they appeared, Man and his wife, the dancer Juliet Browner, the last of his loves. Two small, slender, light figures, they seemed about to fly away. Juliet still beautiful. After the photos they offered us tea. In the chaos of the studio she arrived with Limoges cups, flowery, elegant, anachronistic in all that disorder. Then Man invited me to sit next to him, on a broken chair. And the interview, for which I felt unprepared, turned into a lesson in art and life. The famous “pain bleu”, the iron with nails, the eye-sculpture, the solarized photographs, other works started and left unfinished, tools, materials, books, clothes floating in careless and fascinating disorder. There was no need to ask questions. He did almost all the talking, and suddenly the culture of contemporary and experimental art became completely clear to me, even beyond Man Ray. Oliviero surreptitiously snapped a candid photo of this precious encounter, which has always remained with me, and today’s exhibition brought it powerfully back to the surface.

Man Ray Forme di Luce
Curated by Pierre-Yves Butzbach and Robert Rocca
Palazzo Reale - Piazza Duomo - Milan
September 24 - January 11, 2026