Charles Ledray
April 27–August 12, 2012
Bass Museum of Art
2100 Collins Ave
Miami Beach, FL 33139
Hours: Wednesday–Sunday, 12–5pm
T 305 673 7530
Curated by Steven Holmes
Working in a range of materials from fabric to human bone, Charles LeDray’s work is a poetry of material, scale, and cultural resonance rich with history and emotion. His objects, each exquisite in their separate ways, pulse from the conceptual weight brought to bear by the immense labor of their creation.
While LeDray’s recent mid-career survey exhibition workworkworkworkwork contained more than 50 objects, this exhibition consists of just four art works, selected through close collaboration with curator Steven Holmes. By giving enormous physical and imaginative space to only four very carefully selected works, each work gains an autonomy rare in museum exhibitions, allowing for a quiet absorption of the pathos and absence that characterizes much of his work. Not meant to represent the artist’s overall oeuvre, or even to represent any particular theme within the his work, this exhibition is focused on creating a unique dialogue between four individual, powerful objects—a dialogue of profound intellectual and visual beauty.
A catalogue of charles ledray: bass museum of art is being published.
Charles LeDray was born in 1960 in Seattle, WA, and currently lives and works in New York. The artist’s previous exhibitions include a major mid-career survey organized by the ICA Boston (2010), which traveled to the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and concluded at The Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. Previous solo exhibitions included an exhibition organized by the ICA Philadelphia (2002); Past Presence: Childhood and Memory, Whitney Museum of Art, New York (2005); and the Venice Biennale (1997). He was the recipient of the Prix de Rome from the American Academy in Rome. The artist’s work can be found in major public collections including the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; the Museum of Fine Arts, Boston; and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art.
Steven Holmes is Adjunct Curator of Art at The Bass Museum of Art.
The Bass Museum of Art is generously funded by the City of Miami Beach, Cultural Affairs Program, Cultural Arts Council; Miami-Dade County Department of Cultural Affairs and the Cultural Affairs Council, the Miami-Dade County Mayor and Board of County Commissioners; John S. and James L. Knight Foundation; and sponsored in part by the State of Florida, Department of State, Division of Cultural Affairs and the Florida Council on Arts and Culture and the Bass Museum of Art Exhibition Fund.
*Image above:
Charles LeDray, MENS SUITS, 2009. Variable dimensions. Installation view, Bass Museum of Art, 2012.
Courtesy Sperone Westwater. Photo: Peter Harholdt.
