Charles Ray’s “Boy with Frog” is a painted white stainless steel sculpture standing eight feet tall in a back gallery at the Art Institute of Chicago, depicting just what the title suggests. The tallest in a large room with only four other pieces, it demands attention. Upon closer inspection the detail in the frog dangling from the boy’s right hand is striking. The warts covering the animal contrast the smoothness of the boy’s naked body but the white paint unifies them as a whole. The boy used for reference is the son of one of Ray’s former students and is also the model in two other pieces, “The New Beetle” and “School Play”. All three of the sculptures in this “accidental trilogy” appear in a line in the exhibit, spaced far from each other, almost as a way to display the time between the creation of each. Despite the grandiose size of the piece it is easy to tell this work is of a child and the white stainless steel reminds one of the marble used in Greek sculptures that beautifully captured the details of the human body.
Conceptually, one could say this piece is an ode to childhood….
In the exhibit at the Art Institute of Chicago at least eight of the nineteen pieces there were human sculptures, nude or otherwise. This particular piece fits well in the accidental trilogy mentioned earlier, as each boy has the same calm and stoic face, something also seen in other human forms created by Ray. Color wise, the white-painted sculpture goes along with the neutral palettes seen throughout the exhibit. Everything there was either white, gray, or a metallic silver; the only thing sticking out was the tan “Hinoki” meant to resemble rotting wood. He seems to enjoy playing around with scale in many pieces, such as the 6,262 pound enlarged leg of an action figure seen in “Future Fragment on a Solid Base.” Overall, Ray seems to have found a medium that he likes and continues to explore…
