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① Artwork:
DRFTRS (6261)
Executed on paper, the DRFTRS (an acronym for ‘drifter’) are hybrid collages in which cut-and-pasted images occupy expressionistic landscapes. These nomadic elements, drifting through painterly space, are extracted from a vast image bank compiled by the artist. They reveal many of the artist’s current preoccupations, including protest posters, horror movies, arts and crafts, album covers, orchids & poppies, snakeskins, stalagmites & stalactites, skulls & bones, prisons, archaeological excavations, and ancient artifacts. The brightly painted backdrops veer from dense and apocalyptic to sparse and vibrant. Combined with the photographic images, they create a psychological tension that channels the contemporary zeitgeist. Ruby has described collage as an ‘illicit merger,’ highlighting the transgressive nature of the medium.
Sterling Ruby is known for the multifaceted nature of his practice, which encompasses painting, ceramics, collage, video, photography, textiles, sculpture, and installations. Working in a wide range of media, from the traditional to the unconventional, Ruby has created an oeuvre that, while remarkably diverse, is firmly rooted within a complex and coherent artistic strategy. His practice combines philosophical inquiry and material investigation, leading to a seemingly endless repurposing, combining, and recombining of different techniques and media within Ruby’s non-hierarchical, boundaryless universe.
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③ Artist:
Sterling Ruby is known for the multifaceted nature of his practice, which encompasses painting, ceramics, collage, video, photography, textiles, sculpture, and installations. Working in a wide range of media, from the traditional to the unconventional, Ruby has created an oeuvre that, while remarkably diverse, is firmly rooted within a complex and coherent artistic strategy. Often drawing upon autobiographical, art historical, or sociological sources, Ruby's seemingly ‘incomprehensible’ visual range embodies a schizophrenic, ‘post-everything’ state of perpetual fragmentation and synthesis. His practice involves a combination of philosophical inquiry and material investigation, with the latter involving the seemingly endless repurposing, combining, and recombining of different techniques and media. This approach also mirrors a shifting condition of constant deconstruction/reconfiguration and the idea of a non-hierarchical, boundaryless universe.
Sterling Ruby was born in 1972 and lives and works in Los Angeles, CA.
His work is in the collections of the Museum of Modern Art, New York, NY; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago, Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Tate, London; Centre Pompidou, Paris; and Moderna Museet, Stockholm.
Ruby’s sculpture DOUBLE CANDLE (2018) is installed permanently at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC.
Recent solo exhibitions include A Project in Four Acts, Palazzo Diedo, Venice, Italy (2022–24); Sterling Ruby in the Ullens Collection: Beyond Boundaries, Concrete, Alserkal Avenue, Dubai (2022); Institute of Contemporary Art, Miami, FL (2019–20, traveled to Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA); Ceramics, Des Moines Art Center, IA (2018, traveled to Museum of Arts and Design, New York); STOVES, Musée de la Chasse et de la Nature, Paris, France (2015); and DROPPA BLOCKA, Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Deurle, Belgium (2013).
In 2014, he participated in the Gwangju Biennale, Taipei Triennale, and Whitney Biennial.
Garments from Ruby’s S.R. STUDIO. LA. CA. were included in the Costume Institute’s survey of American fashion, In America: A Lexicon of Fashion, at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (2021–22).
Executed on paper, the DRFTRS (an acronym for ‘drifter’) are hybrid collages in which cut-and-pasted images occupy expressionistic landscapes. These nomadic elements, drifting through painterly space, are extracted from a vast image bank compiled by the artist. They reveal many of the artist’s current preoccupations, including protest posters, horror movies, arts and crafts, album covers, orchids & poppies, snakeskins, stalagmites & stalactites, skulls & bones, prisons, archaeological excavations, and ancient artifacts. The brightly painted backdrops veer from dense and apocalyptic to sparse and vibrant. Combined with the photographic images, they create a psychological tension that channels the contemporary zeitgeist. Ruby has described collage as an ‘illicit merger,’ highlighting the transgressive nature of the medium.More
- Framed: 34.4 x 41.6 x 1.5 in.
- Signed and dated "Sterling Ruby 16" incised on the front, bottom right
