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Les objets

Raoul Ubac Belgian
1939
Not on view
In this work, Ubac removes everyday objects—an egg, knife, coin, and cord—from their usual contexts, stripping them of their meaning as items of consumption, utility, or exchange, and assembles them according to his own flexible logic. When Ubac exhibited this photograph with the knife pointing up, he subtitled it “Night Landscape,” but when he displayed the photograph inverted, with the knife pointed down, he called it “Alphabetical Order.” By populating his image with common items surrounded by an eerie glow and giving it changeable subtitles, Ubac demonstrates the associative dream logic of Surrealism.

Artwork Details

Object Information
  • Title: Les objets
  • Artist: Raoul Ubac (Belgian, Malmèdy 1910–1985 Dieudonné)
  • Date: 1939
  • Medium: Gelatin silver print
  • Dimensions: 29.8 x 23.0 cm (11 3/4 x 9 1/16 in.)
  • Classification: Photographs
  • Credit Line: Ford Motor Company Collection, Gift of Ford Motor Company and John C. Waddell, 1987
  • Object Number: 1987.1100.467
  • Rights and Reproduction: © 2025 Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York
  • Curatorial Department: Photographs

More Artwork

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Untitled Abstraction
Raoul Ubac
20th century
Le Combat des Penthésilées, Raoul Ubac Belgian, Gelatin silver print from copy negative
Le Combat des Penthésilées
Raoul Ubac
1937, printed later
Portrait Dans un Miroir, Raoul Ubac Belgian, Gelatin silver print
Portrait Dans un Miroir
Raoul Ubac
1938
Chicago, Pol Bury Belgian, Gelatin silver print
Chicago
Pol Bury
ca. 1969
La Colonne Morris dans le Brouillard, Brassaï French, born Romania (Transylvania), Gelatin silver print
La Colonne Morris dans le Brouillard
Brassaï
1932, printed ca. 1960

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