CHARLES RAY (b. 1953) 83 X 85 X 81 = 83 X 85

PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE EUROPEAN COLLECTION

Provenance
Feature Inc., NEW YORK

Exhibited
PITTSBURGH, The Mattress Factory, CHARLES RAY, 1989 (other example exhibited)
SAN CLEMENTE, Newport Harbor Art Museum, CHARLES RAY, July 15-September 23, 1990, p. 19 (other example exhibited and illustrated)
NEW YORK, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, CADENCE: ICON AND ABSTRACTION IN CONTEXT, March-April 1991 (other example exhibited) MALMÖ,
Rooseum-Center for Contemporary Art, March 5-May 8, 1994,
LONDON, Institute of Contemporary Art, June 24-August 14, 1994, Kunsthalle Bern, August 30-October 9, 1994 and Kunsthalle Zurich, August 30-October 2, 1994, CHARLES RAY, p. 46 (illustrated)
LOS ANGELES, The Museum of Contemporary Art, CHARLES RAY, November 15, 1998-February 21, 1999, p. 17 (other example exhibited; illustrated)

Literature
C. Ray, L. Barnes and D. Cooper, CHARLES RAY, SAN CLEMENTE,1990, p. 19 (other example illustrated)
P. Schjeldahl, "Think Box," VILLAGE VOICE, March 5, 1991, p. 77 (illustrated)
L. Nittve and U. Levén, eds., CHARLES RAY, MALMÖ, 1994, p. 46 (illustrated)
R. Ferguson and S. Emerson, ed., CHARLES RAY, LOS ANGELES-ZURICH, 1998, p. 17 (other example illustrated)

ART'S FUNCTION IS NOT TO PROVE A FORMULA OR AN AESTHETIC DOGMA. OUR ACADEMIC RULES WERE TAKEN OUT OF THE LIVING WORKS OF FORMER MASTERS. AS DEBUSSY HAS SAID 'WORKS OF ART MAKE RULES BUT RULES DO NOT MAKE WORKS OF ART. ART EXISTS ONLY AS A MEDIUM OF EXPRESSION.'

Edgard Varèse in a lecture based upon his book, THE LIBERATION OF SOUND, given at Mary Austin House, Sante Fe in 1936

From the outset of his career, Charles Ray has consistently demonstrated an "autonomous completeness-a self-sufficiency and self-containment that has been much commented on" (L. Phillips taken from R. Ferguson and S. Emerson, eds., CHARLES RAY, LOS ANGELES, 1998, p. 82). His formative years in military school and university served as a period of incubation where he developed and refined a visual style that confronted his viewers with the forceandmagnitudeofafreight train, on both the physical and cerebral levels. His work exists on the Fringe, pushing the boundaries of accepted norms within the mainstream artworld. A style and body of work that is in a constant state of flux, changing and adapting his work with each new stage in his life. Ray's body of work spans a wide spectrum and comprised of a multitude of mediums. Shifting from "caro-esque" sculptures, to performance, to self-explorations, to minimalist, pop and surrealist dalliances. For Ray, the term "sculpture" is a verb and his viewers and their experiences with his works are integral elements to the overall success of the work. When asked in what direction the sculptures should face, Ray states: "Well, They'rereally directed toward the viewer, because I figure maybe what interests me might interest the viewer. I don't have any other gauge. I can't think about what's going to interest Joan, what's going to interest Bob, or Sue or Sam, so I just start to assume that if it engages me on some level and has implications or reverberations for me hopefully it will for someone else. Not always, it doesn't always" (taken from an interview with Lucinda Barnes in C. Ray, L. Barnes and D. Cooper, CHARLES RAY, SAN CLEMENTE, 1990, p. 14).

By the mid to late 1980s Ray moved away from performative, "bodycentric" pieces, to focus on more objective works that engaged and confronted the viewer. By 1986 (INK BOX) he is plainly confronting the powerful legacy of minimalism, seemingly sharing "the minimalist's love of the gestalt and their repetition of unitary forms–the paired down essential, and Generic object" (L. Phillips, p. 82). The quintessential minimalist form is quite possibly thecube. A myriad of minimalist and post-minimalist artists haveexperimented and investigated the structure. In opposition to the convictions and belief of the absolute purity of form and utopian principles held by many of the minimalists, Ray creates forms that are in essence illusions. "Their icons of authority were also used by Ray as foils for psychological states he wanted to express" (ibid., p. 98).

Continuing to play off of the creative momentum generated with INK BOX of 1986, the present lot, 83 x 85 x 81= 83 x 85 x 86, continues to explore the form of the cube. Two such sculptures have been fabricated. Each was made separately, one in inches and one—the present lot—in centimeters. From the outside, the box appears to be sitting on the floor, however the sides of the cube have been subtly altered and a false bottom employed allowing the cube to sit sunken into the floor. The sculpture came to fruition between INK BOX and 7½ ton cube, a later work that also manipulated the structure and "idea" of the cube. The presence that the work commands is both physical and cerebral. "The subtle but powerfully disorienting difference in depth creates a physically unsettling quality for the viewer" (ibid., p. 82) As Ray has stated, "It is a mind body problem. I was thinking of putting a thought in a box and seeing what might happen. Thought displaces the physical world and the physical world displaces thought" (taken from an interview with Lucinda Barnes in C. Ray, L. Barnes and D. Cooper, CHARLES RAY, SAN CLEMENTE, 1990, p. 14).

Ray has made very obvious his desire to articulate the interior in this specific work. By drawing the viewer to peer inside of the cube, Ray has made the interior space the main focus of the work. The exterior of the cube is left to function as a shell or a mask concealing the true nature and identity of the work. As Lisa Philips describes, "This work is a phenomenological and perceptual encounter that engages the viewers in space and time" (L. Phillips, p. 98).

Manipulating our emotions and perception of what is "real" are at the root of the present lot and Charles Ray continues to execute this with aplomb and proficiency with each successive work that he executes. His journeys of psychological self-exploration and examination continue to translate into challenging and masterful works that are truly sui generis.

"[Charles] Ray forces us to reflect on things so basic or so close that we take them for granted. By subtly disrupting norms or changing the context of the ordinary,he causes a shift in perception and consciousness–an apprehension of the strangeness in the familiar that is the hallmark of his art…Told in great realism and detail, the ordinary becomes heroic; the simple becomes complex; the obvious becomes mysterious; the closed becomes open-ended; the literal becomes metaphorical. Appearances are shown to be deceptive; nothing is what it seems" (L. Phillips, p. 98).

"THE MOST PRUDENT AND EFFECTIVE METHOD OF DEALING WITH THE WORLD AROUND US IS TO ASSUME THAT IT IS A COMPLETE FICTION" CHARLES RAY