Object to Be Destroyed

Object to Be Destroyed is a well-known work by American Dadaist Man Ray. The work, which also goes by other names, consists of a metronome with a photograph of an eye attached to its swinging arm.

The original Object to Be Destroyed was created in 1923. It was first seen by the public as an ink drawing, Object of Destruction, in 1932, the year Ray's lover, Lee Miller, left him. The drawing carried the following text:

Cut out the eye from a photograph of one who has been loved but is seen no more. Attach the eye to the pendulum of a metronome and regulate the weight to suit the tempo desired. Keep going to the limit of endurance. With a hammer well-aimed, try to destroy the whole at a single blow.

To make the connection to Miller even more explicit, the object's original eye was replaced with hers.

In 1957, the object was being exhibited in the Exhibition Dada in Paris when a group of protesting students actually destroyed it. The next edition of the work, created the following year, was titled Indestructible Object.

Other versions of the object have been known as Lost Object, Last Object, and Perpetual Motif.

Resources

• Between you and me: Man Ray's Object to Be Destroyed (Art Journal, Spring 2004)
• Eye of the beholder (Tate Magazine