Balancing precision with vulnerability has always been part of Charles Ray’s project, like in the early 1980s, when he would insert his own real human body into minimal steel forms. His newest work, the 12 ton Baled Truck at Matthew Marks, is so impressively precise that’s almost hard to remember what you’re looking at: a stainless steel replica of a devastating “death wreck.” A few years ago, Ray went to a salvage yard looking for the right death wreck — a difficult task, it turned out, because not all devastating crashes leave behind smashed metal that’s equally interesting to look at. Once he found his wreck, the process of carving it was a painstaking multi-year undertaking. It became “less about death than about perfection,” as Ray recently told art writer Tyler Green.

Tuesdays-Saturdays, 10 a.m.-6 p.m. Starts: Dec. 4. Continues through Dec. 20, 2014
(Expired: 12/20/14)

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