Charles Ray: Figure Ground

<b>This career-spanning publication features conceptual, political, formal, and technical perspectives on the work of contemporary sculptor Charles Ray</b><br><br> For Charles Ray (born 1953), sculpture is a way of thinking that informs his work across a wide range of media&#8212;from gelatin silver prints to porcelain, fiberglass, wood, and steel. <i>Charles Ray: Figure Ground</i> spans the whole of the artist&#8217;s fifty-year 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&#8217;s engagement with preexisting traditions, as well as charged issues around race, gender, and sexuality (notably expressed through his explorations of Mark Twain&#8217;s 1884 novel <i>Adventures of Huckleberry Finn</i>) 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.

<b>Kelly Baum</b> is the Cynthia Hazen Polsky and Leon Polsky Curator of Contemporary Art, and <b>Brinda Kumar</b> is associate curator, both in the Department of Modern and Contemporary Art at The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York.