The Spring 2026 Graduate Art guest lecture series, organized by Jack Bankowsky and Jason Smith.

Charles Ray

This event is free and open to the public. RSVPs are not required.

Charles Ray (b. 1953) grew up in Chicago and moved to Los Angeles in 1981, where he currently lives and works. For almost fifty years Ray has been making art that engages the mind and the eye. His earliest works often included his own performing body. More recently he has focused on his art’s relationship to the long history of sculpture. This can be seen not only in his engagement with the fundamental elements of the medium — space, mass, and texture — but also in his adoption of historical themes, including the equestrian portrait, the reclining nude, and the relief. At the same time, Ray’s works are firmly embedded in their time and place, with subject matter and techniques attuned to our historical moment.

Ray’s art has been featured in Documenta, three Venice Biennales, and six Whitney Biennials, and his sculptures have been the subject of five retrospectives: Charles Ray, Museum of Contemporary Art in Los Angeles, CA which traveled to the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL (1988-89); Charles Ray, at the Kunstmuseum Basel, Switzerland and the Art Institute of Chicago, IL (2014-15); and in 2022, separate solo presentations opened at The Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York, as well as, the Centre Pompidou and Bourse de Commerce in Paris, France.

Image by Joshua White.

Support for this series is generously provided by the following: Jack Shear, Brenda R. Potter, Brendan Dugan, Lisson Gallery, Beth Rudin DeWoody, BLUM, Hannah Hoffman, Alan Hergott, David Kordansky, and Jeffrey Deitch.

ArtCenter's Graduate Art program is based on intensive studio practice and rigorous academic coursework. The program is distinguished by its low faculty-to-student ratio that provides students with the attention and feedback they need to refine and achieve their artistic goals. Faculty and students are artists working in all genres—film, video, photography, painting, sculpture, performance and installation. A significant number of alumni have achieved national and international acclaim and often return to share their insights and expertise as visiting faculty and guest lecturers.