Charles Ray

Is the toy firetruck really that big?, Why does he take the mannequin to the next level of realism, is it neccesary?

I find it funny that the author of the book seems to not like the fact that Charles gets so much attention, sensing a bit of jealousy/hostility. Another thing that I find intriguing about this blurb is that the author is using complicated sentence structure and higher level vocabulary words, whilst talking about a simple "kind of " guy. Ray seems like a very open fellow with nothing to hide. I admire that he uses himself as a model in a number of his works, not my style but respectable. The way his mind works is what sticks out the most to me, he takes things that are mostly obsurd/mundane and puts a spin on it. He makes tabletop objects move with his mind. What I mean is that he uses his knowledge to build machines to move the objects therefore fulfilling the statement just in a different way. The life-size toy firetruck is awesome, enough said. The mannequin is a recreation of charles' body, therefore almost serving as a self-portrait. However, he uses this object to symbolize the union of commerce and art, he does something that is taboo in our society and succeeds. Let us think for a moment, what if we hit a dark ages time, and records are lost, computers destroyed and cities burn. A couple thousand years later some new civilization finds our shopping malls, they assume that it is like a castle or hotel something like that and mannequins are sculpture pieces, are they going to assume that everyone was bald and lifeless looking with no reproductive parts. He is brave.

Overall I like the ideas that he is portraying and feel like he is taking on a daunting task by taking our society and turning it over on itself.