CORY REYNOLDS | DATE 5/11/2022

In 'Charles Ray,' a physicality embedded in a mentality

Fabricated from handmade paper, Charles Ray’s 2020 self-portrait “Return to the One” is reproduced from the catalogue to the double exhibition currently on view at the Centre Pompidou and Bourse de Commerce in Paris—two of four major art venues hosting shows on the artist, including Glenstone Museum and The Metropolitan Museum of Art in the United States. Featuring 300 color images, this volume dives deep into Ray’s uncompromising, formally intricate and often uncanny sculptural work, and includes a wealth of both scholarly essays and subtly brilliant texts by the artist. In his closing essay, 57,000 Pounds, Ray concludes, “Thank you for viewing my art show at the Bourse and Pompidou. The total weight of both exhibitions is 57,000 pounds. Too heavy to leave earth’s gravity. But what I share with you and the sculptures is a physicality embedded in a mentality. This equation cannot run the other way around.”