Cis a ruin, a wreck, a sheet metal corpse. A car smashed by a monstrous accident, but of a white-gray so perfectly uniform that it acquires a beauty, a purity, almost a mausoleum serenity. Actually no, it’s not a smashed car: it’s the sculpture of a smashed car. A double, remodeled identically, patiently, piece by piece, in fiberglass, after the real car where death was invited. Because it is a ghost story », explains the artist, appearing like one of them next to us, in the huge hall of the Center Pompidou.
He is, however, very much alive and incredibly precise, Charles Ray, born in Chicago in 1953 and who has become one of the greatest artists of our time. Under his woolen cap and his cool quickdraw, his little…
Nicolas Krief – Pinault Collection © Charles Ray – © Charles Ray Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery. Photograph by Reto Pedrini, Zurich, Switzerland/Suisse – © Charles Ray courtesy of the artist. Ph © 2020. Digital image Whitney Museum of American Art / Licensed by Scala – © Courtesy Pinault Collection. Photo Aurélien Mole – Pinault Collection, ©Charles Ray, Courtesy Matthew Marks Gallery -© Charles Ray courtesy of the artist. Photograph by Josh White
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