EXHIBITION
Man Ray Max Dupain
2025
VENUE
Heide Museum of Modern Art
YEAR
Studio Peter King was engaged by Heide Museum of Modern Art to design Man Ray | Max Dupain, curated by Heide Artistic Director Lesley Harding in collaboration with Emmanuelle de l'Ecotais. The exhibition placed the contemporaneous work of the two internationally renowned photographers side by side for the first time. The design translates the alliteration of their names into a primary architectural gesture: an abstracted "M," articulated in both plan and section, structures the entire exhibition. The folded geometry references both an open book and the mirrored shutter of a camera, reinforcing themes of publication, reflection and the mechanics of photographic encounter.
Mirrored planes isolate individual works while simultaneously reflecting adjacent works, allowing comparison between the two photographers to happen spatially rather than through wall text. That same angled geometry carries through at every scale, informing custom showcase mounts and newly designed seating, while an angled wall presents paired video works on opposing faces — allowing them to be viewed independently or simultaneously.
The exhibition opens with a showcase presenting the book "Photographs by Man Ray 1920–1934," a major influence on Max Dupain's own practice and the work that first introduced him to Man Ray's experimental techniques. The book includes a poem by Marcel Duchamp's alter-ego Rrose Sélavy, titled "Men Before the Mirror" — a fitting echo of the mirrored encounter that follows, as visitors view both photographers' work side by side while catching their own reflection in the frame. The reflective motif recurs throughout the show, including in the exhibition's graphic identity.
The gallery unfolds as a series of distinct chapters, with colours drawn from a 1934 exhibition catalogue displayed at the entry, grounding the palette in historical reference. A velvet-curtained threshold marks the shift into the darkest gallery, which houses Man Ray's rayographs — intensifying the experience as visitors move toward the most radical works on display. An original five-part musical score, composed for the exhibition, plays throughout the galleries.
Client: Heide Museum of Modern Art
Curator: Leslie Harding and Emmanuelle de l'Ecotais
Exhibition Design: Studio Peter King in collaboration with Mono Studio
Exhibition Identity: Michael Gibb
Fabrication: PropArt
Painting: Flys Alone
Video: Ruby Taylor
Music: Peter Corrigan
Lighting: MEGS Lighting
Photography by Ruby Taylor and Christian Capurro, courtesy of Heide Museum of Modern Art
“With any two-person juxtaposition, certain visual comparisons are inevitable. The V-shaped mirrored exhibition design layout almost insists on it, reflecting one artist against the other at staged intervals. What’s more interesting is how Dupain’s and Man Ray’s works are often intermingled rather than segregated. The curators resist the urge to compare them in an annulled, oppositional way. Because many of the photographs are hung in grids or loose clusters, there aren’t individual wall labels for each work. Instead, a single caption sits to the side, covering the group as a whole. This forces the viewer to dart back and forth to check who made what. Moving through the exhibition, a kind of confusion sets in; any sense of linear logic or chronology falls away, and I find myself mistaking certain nudes and even fashion photographs made by one for the other. A trio of studies of hands keeps me busy for longer than I expect. The hang keeps you looking, and it feels right.”
— CHELSEA HOPPER
MEMO REVIEW, 8 November 2025