Among the most influential artists working today, Charles Ray has for over five decades expanded the language of sculpture through meticulously crafted, quietly provocative works. Working across a remarkable range of scales, materials, and techniques — from the mixed-media arrangements of his early conceptual pieces to his later works of monumental carved stainless steel and handmade paper — Ray creates sculptures that invite viewers to reconsider their own perceptual and spatial assumptions. Most recently, the artist has explored the long history of figurative sculpture, reworking canonical forms such as the equestrian, the nude, and the relief.

In 2015, Ray inaugurated Thoughts on Sculpture, a lecture series at the Menil Collection in Houston. As the Marina Kellen French Distinguished Visitor of the American Academy in Berlin, he returns to those reflections in a talk at the Neue Nationalgalerie, considering the questions that have shaped his own work and the enduring traditions of sculpture.

A cooperation between the American Academy in Berlin and Neue Nationalgalerie with the support of Fridericianum