Charles Ray: Figure Ground

By Kelly Baum and Brinda Kumar
with contributions by Charles Ray and Hal Foster

For Charles Ray (born 1953), sculpture is a way of thinking that informs his work across a wide range of media—from gelatin silver prints to porcelain, fiberglass, wood, and steel. Charles Ray: Figure Ground spans the whole of the artist’s fiftyyear career, from his early photographs and performances through his intriguing, often unsettling sculptures, some of which are published here for the first time. The essays foreground Ray’s engagement with preexisting traditions, as well as charged issues around race, gender, and sexuality (notably expressed through his explorations of Mark Twain’s 1884 novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn) and investigate the modalities of touch that run through his work. In addition, a reflection by Ray himself and a conversation between the artist and Hal Foster offer further insights into his multifaceted practice.

Kelly Baum is the Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon Polsky Curator of Contemporary Art in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Brinda Kumar is associate curator in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.

Hal Foster is the Townsend Martin, Class of 1917, Professor of Art and Archaeology at Princeton University, New Jersey.