I went to a Man Ray exhibit today at the Jewish Museum in New York. Am I the last person to know that his birth name was Emmanuel Radnitzky? And sure enough, early in the exhibit there was Radnitzky at 13, portrait of the artist as a bar mitzvah boy. I would have enjoyed the exhibit more, but two women in front of me kept talking about their co-op boards and favorite brand of veggie burger. I know I could have walked away, but I was so disgusted by them that I was also attracted. There was also a father, son, grandson trio moving through the show. The grandfather was in a wheelchair. When the art was really outrageous, the old man would punch the air with his cane and exclaim, “He was meshuggenah! Meshuggenah, I tell you.”
Fast forward to the documentary at the end of the show. Here we see the aging Ray in beret and thick glasses; could possibly win a Groucho Marx look-a-like contest. One thing he says stays with me. He doesn’t care about being understood, he says. He wants to be accepted. What does this mean exactly? Has he grown tired of trying to explain his work? He wanted to be accepted by whom? Is it personal or institutional? Doesn’t acceptance follow understanding? In publishing we think in terms of critical success (reviews, prizes) and sales (money). Would you feel accepted if you received a Pulitzer? What about being on the New York Times Bestseller list? What about self-acceptance; does such a thing exist? What it would take to feel accepted? Understood? What’s more important to you?
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Betsy Lerner 
I taught Masterpiece Art for a year to my daughter’s Kindergarten class and Man Ray’s “Lips” was my first piece. The kids went wild over it and surrealism. And I love the “meshuganah” – this was my dad’s standard response to anything he didn’t understand.
What artist wants to be fully comprehended? I’ve never met one that did. Recognition, yes. That allows you to be left alone to get on with it, to stop proving anything and simply create.
And boy did Man Ray do that.
Dreamer with a camera.
I totally agree, if everyone understood it why would you need to say it in the first place?
A quotation that haunts me:
“Is there anyone alive today who understands my Zarathustra?”
– Friedrich Nietzsche
Was Friedrich alive when he said that? Superman, my ass.
I guess you didn’t understand it. But Richard Strauss sure did.
No need to “guess”, I assure you I will never understand Thus Spoke Zarathustra. I’m not the philosophical type, but I needed the Humanities elective…only course I ever dropped…got into the Logic class instead, just under the Drop&Add deadline.
Maybe if they made a movie: Superman V: Nietzsche Meets Russell , and someone gave me a CineMark gift card and some vodka …
However, I agree that Strauss’s Also Sprach Zarathustra is a great way to spend thirty minutes. Crank it up, baby!
Maybe you didn’t read the Walter Kaufmann translation? He’s pretty easy to understand, and doesn’t like to use the word Superman. He thinks it’s for comics. By the way, love your Ram Das quote below. Be Here Now, man.
Man Ray was kidding. That quote was edited out of context; his next line was “I never tell the truth.”
Acceptance is a moving target that disappears as soon as you accidently hit it , unless you are on medication or in a cult that makes you feel good all the time. Oh sure, you could try being NICE, but that will kill you.
Yeah, I’d feel accepted if I won a Pulitzer. Or should I hold out for a MacArthur?
A cult doesn’t make you feel good all the time. Far fom it. I know, I was in one.
Church of Elvis?
No, not that one, but it sounds good. It was an intellectual cult that fucked-up my mind when I was 26. But the leaving it and deprogramming was some of the most valuable education I’ve ever had.
Ganas on Staten Island?
Scientology? No wait… That’s not intellectual. Church of Ayn Rand? Church of the Brian Jonestown Massacre? Depeche Mode? I give up. Tell us.
I wish it was the church of Ayn Rand. I’ve always thought that Howard Roark’s buildings were his God. It was Aesthetic Realism, located in Soho, Manhattan. There’s a lot of beauty in it, all about poetry and the arts, but ultimately, it becomes dangerous as they try to manipulate your thinking. Going through it and leaving it was the most difficult time of my life, but I learned a lot from the ordeal, lessons you can’t learn from books.
As a current member of a “cult” (ain’t it great to be defined?), I can say it definitely doesn’t make you feel good all the time. The only thing that promised me that was heroin, but I didn’t buy the lie.
Tulasi, which cult are you in? Osho? I’m guessing from your name. He’s great. His books helped unravel my mind years ago when I left A.R.
I was just on the Aesthetic Realism website for 20minutes. I’m hooked. I’m sending them a check for $100. It was fascinating to learn how Aesthetic Realism fully explains the sexual behavior of Tiger Woods.
Kyler, I’m a Vaisnava (Gaudiya), aka, Hare Krishna. Her, it’s a cult, in Russia it’s a registered religion, and in India there are millions of adherents of various branches. Actually, I prefer calling it a cult, but not as it’s conventionally defined. At any rate, any group will fuck you up to some degree, starting with family.
Les, can you send me a check for $100? I also have a fascinating explanation for Tiger’s sexual behavior. 😉
@ Tulasi-Priya. Ha. I love coming back days later and checking this stuff out. Thanks for letting us know about your “cult.” I tried to “accept Jesus as my personal savior” the summer after 7th grade. It was at an Assembly of God summer camp in, I’m not kidding, Devil’s Lake, North Dakota. It certainly felt like a cult to me. Creepy. Creepy stuff.
I think this blog may be a cult. It has a charismatic leader and plenty of loyal followers!
When I was a teacher in a school for kids who exhausted all their public school options I tried to be conscious of meeting them where they were, basically accepting them and moving forward from there. Some I grew to understand, some I didn’t, but it all started with acceptance.
Very True. I once worked in a school for children with learning issues. It really changed my perception of what it means to be intellectually gifted or challenged. In an environment where these children are accepted, beautiful things can blossom from them.
I want to be taken seriously, not understood and I’m willing to give that to others. Hell, I don’t even understand myself most of the time.
Acceptance = respect, not agreement, or understanding or consensus.
I want to be respected by people I respect. That’s already manifest in my social life, thank goodness. If that can extend to my writing, so much the better, except most of my literary heroes are dead. A blurb or favorable review from J.M. Coetzee would be nice!
I struggle with fears of being rejected or misunderstood by my faith community because of my writing.
Rejection can also be a sign of respect. A writer might threaten the Establishment. Or simply be too far ahead of his or her time. In which case posthumous understanding, respect, or acceptance may be the best you can do. (see, van Gogh, Vincent and O’Connor, Flannery).
I think acceptance is key. My children are all so different — all struggling and excelling in different ways, ways that are not necessarily my ways — and I think my job and my struggle is to accept them for who they are. The same is true in my writing — I may think I’m writing about one thing, but I must learn to accept that my characters may have different ideas. If I ignore them, the work suffers. If I reject them, we’re nowhere. If I understood them, I would have no reason to write their stories.
I thought writing a book meant that I wasn’t a failure. I thought getting it published meant that I was successful. I think your notion of success evolves with everything you achieve, making it even tougher for you to find it.
“To understand that you are not accepted, you must first accept that you are not understood.”
– Gaga Ram Dass, Keeper of the Fireball Roberts Flame
High Temple of the Universal Joint