Art Review December Issue - (Page 54)
F E AT U R E Sterling Ruby of Mike Kelley and Richard Hawkins, two graduate
school mentors, Ruby is one of a handful of young artists rejecting the
rigid parameters of minimalism, formalism and straight conceptual art in
favour of a more holistic model capable of speaking beyond the walls of
academia and embracing the complications of an image- and
information-saturated world. This approach is gaining him a good deal of
attention. Now thirty-four, Ruby was born in Germany to a Dutch mother and
American father, and raised in Pennsylvania. He completed his bachelor's
this page, clockwise from left: Absolute Contempt for Total Serenity
degree at the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, where he lived for
several years, showing locally, before Single-C.U.M.I.D. , 2006, Formica
on wood, urethane, 159 x 76 x 76 cm. moving to California to attend Art
Center College of Design in Pasadena. He began showing with Foxy Photo:
Robert Wedemeyer. Courtesy the artist and Marc Foxx Gallery, Los Angeles
Production in New York and then Marc Foxx Gallery in Los Angeles soon
after. Marc Foxx calls his MFA show the best I've ever seen . He's had
seven solo shows in the two years since graduating, the largest of
Supermax 2006, 2006 installation view, Galerie Christian Nagel, Cologne
which, at Galerie Christian Nagel in Cologne, was offered after a single
studio visit. Photo: Simon Vogel. Courtesy Galerie Christian Nagel,
Cologne Ruby's manner, in conversation, is open and assured. When asked
about the diversity of his production, he responds with an eager nod, like
a tour guide happy to share his knowledge of the subject without claiming
Ceramic/Brass Facial with Red Bowl, 2006, ceramic on Formica pedestal, 67
x 67 x 127 to be the only authority. Each pocket of work came from a
different viewpoint, he explains. But they all cm. Photo: Robert
Wedemeyer. Courtesy the artist and Galerie Christian Nagel, Berlin seem to
have this lineage between them. I can really generalise and say that
everything has a dichotomy of repression and expression. I mean, each work
has these kind of push/pull events which lead to it looking expressive, but
having this kind of repressive tendency to it. His recent exhibition at
Marc Foxx revolved around a symmetrical arrangement of tall, pale
Formica-covered monoliths
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