Walking a Fine Line With a Hungry Lion
WALDEN, New York — The Los Angeles sculptor Charles Ray woke up at 5 a.m. and walked for four hours, as he does every day, both for his health and solitary reflection.
Only he was in New York at the time, so he used Central Park. Energized, he got into a car and came up here to the Polich Tallix foundry in Orange County, to see some men about a lion and a dog.
Mr. Ray, who is known for his mysterious figural sculptures that “circle ancient themes and conventions,” as Roberta Smith wrote in a Times review, was finishing his painstaking work last month on new versions of a 2017 piece, “Mountain Lion Attacking a Dog,” for the exhibition at Matthew Marks Gallery in Manhattan, through June 16.
The cast sculpture comprises two main pieces, interlocking where the mouth of the lion meets the neck of the dog — the killing moment frozen in time. And it epitomizes the artist’s enigmatic relationship with his subject matter. Even when he is sculpting a nature scene, Mr. Ray unearths something uncanny that can provoke a reaction.
You wouldn’t necessarily know it from his process, which is steeped in art historical and aesthetic concerns. Mr. Ray agonizes, meditates and philosophizes about every aspect of the piece.
Just the seams on “Mountain Lion” have occupied his mind for a year — he doesn’t “encourage” them, he said, but it often can’t be helped. “Sculpture and seams are like boxers and broken noses: They go hand in hand.”
The five new pieces in the show represent a large portion of the work he has completed since his 2014-2015 retrospective, shown in Chicago, which may explain why they cost between $2 million and $8 million each. For a major artist, Mr. Ray produces little. “I work very slowly,” he said.
Mr. Ray, 64, had completed a sterling silver version with a rich gleam. Next to it was a stainless steel version that required more polishing.
He is perhaps best known for “Boy With Frog” (2009), commissioned by the luxury goods tycoon François Pinault for the piazza in front of the Punta della Dogana, his museum in Venice, but later removed. The nude sculpture was beloved by many, but offensive to others.
Even his fans acknowledge that his subjects can have unpredictable effects on viewers. “People can get stuck with his provocative content,” said James Rondeau, the president and director of the Art Institute of Chicago.
After his foundry visit, Mr. Ray talked about how he sent a sculpture to a collector “and I sent 12 empty crates along with it. I said the 12 empty crates is the space that goes around it. He was totally freaked out.” It was a joke, or maybe more of a wish, since he advocates lots of air around his sculpture.
For the Matthew Marks show, Mr. Ray spread three works in one building and, in an adjacent space next door, installed just two more.
Mr. Ray leaves room for the uncanny wherever he goes.