Chicago
Charles LeDray
The Three Arts Club of Chicago
1300 North Dearborn Parkway
September 19–December 21, 2002
ICA - Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston
25 Harbor Shore Drive
May 11–July 14, 2002
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts
701 Mission Street
January 25–April 6, 2003
Seattle Art Museum
1300 First Avenue
April 24–July 27, 2003
Curated by Claudia Gould
Recontextualization, replication, and multiplication are postmodern strategies used to drag quotidian objects into the resistant realm of art. Charles LeDray has reversed directions by making the familiar unique. By way of painstaking handwork techniques, he weaves and sews dream-scale clothing; grinds human bone into disconcerting buttons; fashions abused toy bears from tar and velvet; and fires two thousand tiny porcelain vessels, talismanic offerings to masters of clay like Betty Woodman and George Ohr. Organized by ICA director Claudia Gould, the exhibition is accompanied by a catalogue with an interview by Gould and an essay by Russell Ferguson.