Charles Ray Essay

To call Charles Ray: Sculpture, 1997-2014 at the Art Institute of Chicago sparse is both an over and understatement. The exhibition on the Chicago-born, Los Angeles-based sculptor dedicates an entire half of the Modern Wing’s second floor to a mere nineteen different sculptures. Based on the exhibit’s title and the sheer size of the rooms that they gave to these pieces, it is as if they are trying to edify the viewer to Ray’s value as a contemporary artist. However, as you go through the exhibition, it becomes less about Ray as sculptor and more about Ray as recorder working with and against the passage of time, which it achieves to mixed results.
The exhibit is divided into three rooms with about five pieces per room. A single window spans an entire wall of the building which gives a sense of ebb-and-flow through the rooms, and through time, while bathing them in natural light. Artificial lights hover over each separate piece in a soft halo of its own but the effect is nullified by the light coming through the window, especially at midday. However, when the sunlight begins to die, these lights provide both illumination and warmth to the exhibit and all that comprise it. Warmth, not in the physical sense of feeling warm, but the kind of
The first time you go through the exhibition, it is art as experience. You are seeing, experiencing these pieces for the first time then when you leave, you go through the exhibit again but with art as memory, as reflection. It employs an interesting mechanic that was bogged down by the some of the pieces and the choice to use bright white cold walls. Note that this may have been no fault of the curators since Ray’s propensity to taking years to create a piece does not make a very prolific catalog. Regardless, do not let this keep you from going and appreciating what this artist has done for contemporary art throughout his career. It may be a mixed bag, but it is