Charles Ray

Born in Chicago in 1953, Charles Ray is widely recognized as one of the most significant artists of his generation. He is best known for his sculptures of people, animals, and familiar objects. Firetruck (1993), a 12-by-47-foot replica of a children’s toy, was installed in the street outside the Whitney Museum of American Art during the museum’s 1993 biennial. Hinoki (2007) is a life-size sculpture, hand-carved in Japanese cypress by master woodworkers, of a fallen tree Ray found in a California meadow. Horse and rider (2014), machined from solid stainless steel, is a ten-ton equestrian statue with the artist astride it, while Two horses (2019) is an equine relief carved from a single block of Virginia granite weighing more than six tons. Ray’s work has been shown at Documenta IX (1992), the Venice Biennale (1993, 2003, 2013), and the Whitney Biennial (1989, 1993, 1995, 1997, 2010), and has been the subject of one-person exhibitions across the United States and Europe, including museums in Basel, Chicago, London, Los Angeles, Milan, Vienna, and Oslo. He currently lives and works in Los Angeles.