In 1921, the painter Man Ray sailed from New York to Paris. He had met Marcel Duchamp in 1915, in New Jersey, and in Paris Duchamp brought him into his circle of Dadaists. Settling in Montparnasse, Ray spent his days in cafés—drinking espressos and smoking with other avant-garde figures—and his nights in the darkroom. That winter, he pioneered the “rayograph,” a photographic technique that used light-sensitive paper instead of a camera to turned everyday objects—a teacup, a spoon—into mysterious compositions. As the poet Tristan Tzara put it, he seemed to capture the objects dreaming. With 60 rayographs alongside 100 paintings, drawings, films, photographs, and more, this Met exhibition (supported by the fashion house Schiaparelli) is the first to explore the rayographs in the context of Ray’s work from the 1910s and 1920s. —Elena Clavarino