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Charles LeDray
The Bass Museum of Art, Miami Beach
April 27 – August 12, 2012

Craft, conceptual art, and poetry intersect in an enthralling exhibition by Charles LeDray.

What was initially most striking about this exhibition was the narrative structure of the installation that begins with a spare, highly focused selection of three well sequenced, dramatically lit individual works—Wheat, Jewelry Window, and Cricket Cage—which then culminates in a stunning large scale installation of the artist’s tour de force Mens Suits.

The show begins with Wheat, a delicate stalk sculpted from human bone. Having had no prior experience with LeDray’s work, my initial impulse was to question the materiality, but that feeling quickly faded as I found myself mesmerized by the object. It’s an elegant sculpture that presents a matte surface that commands and even radiates light. There is an intricacy to the craftsmanship that demands appreciation and an intimacy anchored by the medium. But this is more than craft, and the piece became transcendent when I began to think of the history of this cultivated plant and it’s in inextricable, foundational role in the complex dynamic of human population growth, cultural development, and at that point, I couldn’t imagine a more appropriate material.

With the next piece, Jewelry Window, I was first struck by the use of light and its transformative affect on the material. The glowing back-panel transforms this empty window display into what looks more like a moonlit mountainscape than a dormant site of commerce. Investigating the details is engrossing because individual busts and plinths begin to melt into one another, creating a richly textured, spatially confusing topography. This visual game in itself is almost enough, but the work is about something larger, namely economies—first in the abstract sense of light, shadow, and form and subsequently in the literal sense of commerce. The use of light and lack of color imbues the vacant jeweler’s plinths with an air of mystery, and the resulting visual effect is literally that of a dimly glowing void. I found myself thinking of the link between emptiness and adornment.

The third piece, Cricket Cage, is also sculpted from human bone. The practice of keeping crickets as pets dates to the Tang Dynasty, where insects were kept bedside in ornate boxes, for the enjoyment of their rhythmic songs. Later in Japan, similar cages were used as primitive security devices where families would place cricket cages on their floor while sleeping. If an intruder entered a home, the crickets would stop chirping and the sudden silence would awaken the home owner. However, there is no pet cricket here, only it’s cage. Again the artist has brought our focus to armature as subject rather than support. This absence serves as a call back to Jewelry Window’s void and sets us up for a deeper investigation of emptiness in the next room, which houses the exhibition’s climax: Mens Suits.

The most accessible entry point for an examination of the show’s final work is the blackened, expansive gallery space. So far, LeDray has shown or alluded to small voids, but in this final room, he engulfs us in one. From a distance the emission of glowing light is spectacular and almost generates an atmospheric perspective between the works separate components, so expansive is the space. The combination of the cavernous gallery and the miniature works confuses one’s sense of scale, placing the viewer in the position of an awkwardly oversized, but not quite giant-like, perspective (almost an inversion of Charles Ray). Looking closer, the attention to detail is stunning; LeDray spent years hand sewing and weathering the individual garments. The conceptual depth here is almost beyond comprehension, and it’s filled with reference. The top side of the ceiling tiles alone recall Man Ray’s Dust Breeding and, in turn, Duchamp’s Large Glass. Unlike the mechanical looking suit-ors of the Large Glass however, these garments are full of individual character. So many weathered clothes recall so many weathered lives, all of which culminated, for me, with the laundry scene. Apparently, Jack Kerouac never realized that a jukebox so closely resembled a coffin until he saw Robert Frank’s photographs. After Mens Suits, I may struggle to see a sack of laundry as something other than a body bag.

And so comes the question that plagued me through the entire show—where do LeDray’s human bones come from? I can only assume he’s recycled his people for use in his sculptures, which may be a nod to the fact that his life is clearly consumed by his practice.