Image Essay #5

Man Ray’s work, The Gift, is a great example of iconography. Many icons, labels, or logos give you an image and you are likely to associate with what it means in every day society. For instance, many figures, shapes, and objects fit stereotypes of how they should be and what they stand for. In this piece, the viewer is deceived; the image takes on an entirely different approach to an iron.I have noticed that surrealistic artworks are fetishistic objects, mysterious poetic things that were found and created, and had no narrative. I feel as though they jolt the unconscious and spawned infinite associations, often sexual and violent. In this artwork, the viewer sees a clothing iron. However, the artist glued tacks onto the flat side of it, creating a new dimension to the stereotypical iron, known for ironing clothing in the home. It is a dislocation of both a household item and hardware that creates something unidentifiable, without logic or narrative, but filled with innuendoes of violence, pain, and sex. I feel as though this art is a beyond average example of how artists can change the misconceived meanings of certain objects into a new meaning, by simply adding a few tweaks. It is no longer just an iron used to steam and remove wrinkles in clothing; it is now a weapon, an object of lust, pain, or violence.