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Boy

A work made of painted fiberglass, steel, and fabric.

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  • A work made of painted fiberglass, steel, and fabric.

Date:

1992

Artist:

Charles Ray
American, born 1953

About this artwork

Having been employed as a department-store janitor during his freshman year of college, Charles Ray understands the unease a mannequin can inspire—an inanimate object that one might readily mistake for a live body. His work is also charged with the purely sculptural tensions that exist between surface and interior, armature and appendage, and or size and scale. With Boy, Ray created a particularly disquieting figure. The sculpture stands just shy of six feet tall, the artist’s exact height, yet maintains the softness of youth in its rounded cheeks and limbs. The boy is clad in outdated garments, hovering “between baby and Hitler
youth,” in the words of one critic. Additionally, the boy’s pose and gesture suggest a confrontational manner at odds with his neutral face.

Status

On View, Gallery 296

Department

Contemporary Art

Artist

Charles Ray

Title

Boy

Place

United States (Object made in)

Date  Dates are not always precisely known, but the Art Institute strives to present this information as consistently and legibly as possible. Dates may be represented as a range that spans decades, centuries, dynasties, or periods and may include qualifiers such as c. (circa) or BCE.

1992

Medium

Painted fiberglass, steel, and fabric

Edition

from an edition of 3

Dimensions

181.6 × 68.6 × 86.4 cm (71 1/2 × 27 × 34 in.)

Credit Line

Gift of Edlis Neeson Collection

Reference Number

2015.143

Extended information about this artwork

Object information is a work in progress and may be updated as new research findings emerge. To help improve this record, please email . Information about image downloads and licensing is available here.

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