This career-spanning publication features conceptual, political, formal,

and technical perspectives on the work of contemporary sculptor Charles Ray

For Charles Ray （b. 1953）, one of today's foremost American artists, sculpture is a way of thinking that informs his work across a wide range of media―from gelatin silver prints to porcelain, fiberglass, and steel. Ray's practice is well known but not well understood, a paradox this volume sets out to redress. Spanning the whole of his 50-year career, Charles Ray: Figure Ground considers the artist's intriguing, often unsettling sculptures from both the twentieth and twenty-first

centuries in relationship to his early photographs, performances, and installations. It also explores his long-standing fascination with Mark Twain's

1884 novel Adventures of Huckleberry Finn. Kelly Baum addresses patterns and patterning in Ray's art, foregrounding his engagement with preexisting traditions, classicism among them, as well as charged issues around race, gender, and sexuality. Brinda Kumar investigates the modalities of touch that run through Ray's work, while a reflection by Ray himself and a conversation between the artist and Hal Foster offer further views into Ray's multifaceted practice.

本书跨越当代雕塑家查尔斯·雷（Charles Ray）的职业生涯，从概念、政治、形式和技术角度介绍了他的作品。

对于当今最重要的美国艺术家之一查尔斯·雷（生于1953年）来说，雕塑是一种思维方式，影响着他在各种媒体上的工作，如明胶银版画、瓷器、玻璃纤维和钢铁。雷的实践是众所周知的，但却没有得到很好的理解，这卷书就是为了纠正这种矛盾。本书跨越了他50年的职业生涯，考虑了艺术家在20世纪和21世纪的耐人寻味、通常给人带来不安感的雕塑作品，以及他早期的照片、表演和装置作品的关系。本书还探讨了他对马克·吐温1884年小说《哈克贝利·芬历险记》的长期迷恋。凯莉·鲍姆（Kelly Baum）讨论了雷的艺术中的模式和图案，强调了他与预先存在的传统的接触，其中包括古典主义，以及围绕种族、性别和性行为的问题。布琳达·库马尔（Brinda Kumar）调查了贯穿雷的作品的处理方式，而雷本人的反思以及艺术家和哈尔·福斯特（Hal Foster）之间的对话为雷的多面性实践提供了进一步的观点。