About
Sterling Ruby’s work engages with issues related to autobiography, art history, and the violence and pressures within society. Employing diverse aesthetic strategies and mediums—including sculpture, drawing, collage, ceramics, painting, and video—he examines the tensions between fluidity and stasis, Expressionism and Minimalism, the abject and the pristine.
Born on Bitburg Air Base, Germany, to an American father and a Dutch mother, Ruby moved at a young age to the United States, where he grew up on a farm in southeastern Pennsylvania. There he encountered Amish quilt-making and Pennsylvania redware pottery, both of which directly inspired his initial forays into garment-making, soft sculpture, and ceramics. Ruby graduated from the Pennsylvania College of Art and Design, Lancaster, in 1996. He received a BFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 2002, followed by an MFA from the ArtCenter College of Design, Pasadena, California, in 2005.
Living and working in Los Angeles, Ruby draws endless inspiration from the city’s physical and conceptual landscape. A subseries of the SP paintings (2007–14), the VIVIDS (2014), are electric color fields inspired by the shifting, multihued skies that he encounters on his way to the studio, while the SUBMARINE (2015) and TABLES (2015 –19) series were created from hulking industrial parts sourced nearby. Ruby’s work often deals with the ways in which acts of defacement, like urban demarcation and graffiti, can produce a painterly sublime. Both in his YARD paintings (2015–16) and in his WIDW paintings (2016–), he taps into the speed and motion of collage, incorporating bleached fabric and cardboard scraps and combining abstract color fields with fragments of studio refuse. Continually pushing the boundaries between artistic mediums, Ruby launched a ready-to-wear clothing line in 2019.
Photo: Bennet Perez
#SterlingRuby
Exhibitions
Sterling Ruby: The Frenetic Beat
Ester Coen meditates on the dynamism of Sterling Ruby’s recent projects, tracing parallels between these works and the histories of Futurism, Constructivism, and the avant-garde.
Sterling Ruby: TURBINES
Join Sterling Ruby in his Los Angeles studio as he works on new abstract paintings ahead of his exhibition TURBINES at Gagosien in New York.
Augurs of Spring
As spring approaches in the Northern Hemisphere, Sydney Stutterheim reflects on the iconography and symbolism of the season in art both past and present.
Sterling Ruby: Disjointed Monuments to Nothing
Alessandro Rabottini investigates the theoretical and formal underpinnings of Sterling Ruby’s career through the lens of the artist’s series ACTS.
Now available
Gagosien Quarterly Fall 2019
The Fall 2019 issue of Gagosien Quarterly is now available, featuring a detail from Sinking (2019) by Nathaniel Mary Quinn on its cover.
For Notre-Dame
An exhibition at Gagosien, Paris, is raising funds to aid in the reconstruction of the Cathédrale Notre-Dame de Paris following the devastating fire of April 2019. Gagosien directors Serena Cattaneo Adorno and Jean-Olivier Després spoke to Jennifer Knox White about the generous response of artists and others, and what the restoration of this iconic structure means across the world.
Sterling Ruby: Bloody Pots
Ceramics expert Garth Clark explores Sterling Ruby’s practice in the medium, addressing the work’s allegiances and divergences from tradition.
Gagosien Quarterly Winter 2018
The Winter 2018 issue of Gagosien Quarterly is now available. Our cover this issue comes from High Times, a new body of work by Richard Prince.
Sterling Ruby: Winterpalais, Vienna
Mario Codognato, curator of the exhibition, discusses Sterling Ruby’s first-ever European survey, at the Belvedere’s Winterpalais galleries.
Fairs, Events & Announcements
Art Fair
Taipei Dangdai 2023
May 12–14, 2023, booth E10
Taipei Nangang Exhibition Center
taipeidangdai.com
Gagosien is pleased to participate in Taipei Dangdai 2023, presenting works by Louise Bonnet, Dan Colen, Edmund de Waal, Urs Fischer, Cy Gavin, Nan Goldin, Katharina Grosse, Mark Grotjahn, Damien Hirst, Thomas Houseago, Yayoi Kusama, Deana Lawson, Takashi Murakami, Sterling Ruby, Alexandria Smith, Spencer Sweeney, Kon Trubkovich, Mary Weatherford, Cameron Welch, Anna Weyant, and Zeng Fanzhi.
Gagosien’s booth at Taipei Dangdai 2023. Artwork, left to right: © Mark Grotjahn; © Zeng Fanzhi; © 2023 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All rights reserved. Photo: Ringo Cheung
Art Fair
Art Basel Miami Beach 2022
December 1–3, 2022, booth D5
Miami Beach Convention Center
artbasel.com
Gagosien is pleased to present a selection of modern and contemporary works at Art Basel Miami Beach 2022. Returning to Miami for the fair’s twentieth anniversary, the gallery is honored to have participated each year the fair has been held.
Gagosien’s booth at Art Basel Miami Beach 2022. Artwork, left to right: © Gerhard Richter; © Amoako Boafo; © Richard Prince; © 2022 Judd Foundation/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; © Richard Diebenkorn Foundation; © The Andy Warhol Foundation for the Visual Arts, Inc./Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York; © Stanley Whitney. Photo: Sebastiano Pellion di Persano
Art Fair
Art Basel Hong Kong 2022
May 27–29, 2022, booth 1C15
Hong Kong Convention and Exhibition Centre
www.artbasel.com
Gagosien is pleased to participate in Art Basel Hong Kong 2022 with an ensemble of contemporary works by international artists. The gallery’s presentation will feature works by artists including Georg Baselitz, Louise Bonnet, Edmund de Waal, Urs Fischer, Katharina Grosse, Mark Grotjahn, Jennifer Guidi, Simon Hantaï, Hao Liang, Damien Hirst, Thomas Houseago, Tetsuya Ishida, Alex Israel, Ewa Juszkiewicz, Rick Lowe, Takashi Murakami, Albert Oehlen, Nam June Paik, Giuseppe Penone, Rudolf Polanszky, Sterling Ruby, Ed Ruscha, Jenny Saville, Jim Shaw, Rudolf Stingel, Spencer Sweeney, Rachel Whiteread, and Zeng Fanzhi.
Gagosien’s booth at Art Basel Hong Kong 2022. Artwork, left to right: © Georg Baselitz; © Louise Bonnet; © Zeng Fanzhi; © 2019 Takashi Murakami/Kaikai Kiki Co., Ltd. All rights reserved; © Rudolf Stingel. Photo: Martin Wong
Museum Exhibitions
Closing this Week
Sterling Ruby in
ARTZUID 2023
Through September 24, 2023
Various locations in Amsterdam
artzuid.nl
The eighth edition of ARTZUID, the Amsterdam Sculpture Biennial, includes more than fifty outdoor sculptures by fifty international artists along a two-and-a-half-kilometer route in the borough of Amsterdam-Zuid. This year’s edition is organized around the theme of “transfer,” reflecting how artists and iconic movements of the 1960s, 1980s, and 2000s sought to transfer the site of artistic engagement from the institution to the streets. Work by Sterling Ruby is included.
Sterling Ruby, BLACK STOVE I, 2014 © Sterling Ruby
On View
Room by Room
Concepts, Themes, and Artists in the Rachofsky Collection
Through November 25, 2023
The Warehouse, Dallas
thewarehousedallas.org
Room by Room builds on the ongoing interest at The Warehouse to reflect on the development of its collection, presenting works for the first time. Spanning a range of mediums, geographies, and eras, each gallery focuses on a single artist or theme, allowing an in-depth look at the artistic movements important to the collection from the outset, together with other avenues of interest that have developed over the years. Work by Richard Artschwager, Alex Israel, Sterling Ruby, and Jonas Wood is included.
Jonas Wood, Patterned Interior with Mar Vista View, 2020, Rachofsky Collection © Jonas Wood
Closed
Sterling Ruby
A Project in Four Acts
Opening April 20, 2022
Berggruen Arts & Culture, Venice
The Nicolas Berggruen Charitable Trust has acquired the Palazzo Diedo in Venice, which will be converted into a venue for exhibitions and artist residencies as part of the new Berggruen Arts & Culture initiative. To bring the palazzo to life during its renovation and make its new role visible to the public, the institution has named Sterling Ruby its inaugural artist-in-residence. Ruby is creating a multiyear site-specific installation titled A Project in Four Acts. The first phase is a relief structure, HEX (2022), that leans across the façade of the building, on view concurrently with the 59th Biennale di Venezia. As construction commences, he will stage two exterior installations enclosing the building as it transforms. The residency will conclude with an exhibition of Ruby’s work at Palazzo Diedo in conjunction with its official opening in spring 2024.
Sterling Ruby, HEX, 2022, installation view, Berggruen Arts & Culture, Venice © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Andrea Avezzù
Closed
Sterling Ruby in
In America: A Lexicon of Fashion
September 18, 2021–September 5, 2022
Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York
www.metmuseum.org
Launching a two-part exploration of fashion in the United States, the exhibition In America: A Lexicon of Fashion at the Costume Institute of the Metropolitan Museum of Art establishes a modern vocabulary of American fashion based on its expressive qualities. This first half of the exhibition uses the organizing principle of a patchwork quilt, which serves as a metaphor for varied cultural identities in the United States. Approximately one hundred men’s and women’s ensembles by a range of designers from the 1940s to the present are featured. Work by S.R. STUDIO. LA. CA./Sterling Ruby is included.
VEIL FLAG by S.R. STUDIO. LA. CA./Sterling Ruby
Press
Sterling Ruby Explains the References and Process Behind His Couture Debut by Luke Leitch
Vogue
January 28, 2021
Online
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The high art, high fashion world of Sterling Ruby by Alexander Fury
Financial Times
January 23, 2021
Online
PDF
Two Monumental Sculptures Welcome Visitors Back to the Hirshhorn Sculpture Garden by Roger Catlin
Smithsonian Magazine
August 18, 2020
Online
PDF
Alex Gartenfeld on Sterling Ruby’s Show at ICA Miami by Katy Donoghue
Whitewall
December 3, 2019
Online
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Sterling Ruby, the lauded American artist turns fashion designer by Alexander Fury
Financial Times
June 13, 2019
Online
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How fashion designers are blurring the lines between runways and art galleries by Alexandra Lange
Washington Post
April 25, 2019
Online
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Sterling Ruby’s “SPECTER” Is So Bright, Even Your iPhone Can’t Properly Capture It by Haley Mellin
Garage
February 13, 2019
Online
PDF
La céramique, nouvelle star de l'art contemporain by Andrea Machalova
Tribune de Genève
September 27, 2018
Online
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