Sterling Ruby: ACTS + TABLE, Britannia Street, London, October 2–December 14, 2019

Installation Views

Installation video. — Installation video

Installation view. Artwork © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Lucy Dawkins — Installation view
Artwork © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Installation view with Sterling Ruby, TABLE (DOUBLE LAST SUPPER) (2019). Artwork © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Lucy Dawkins — Installation view with Sterling Ruby, *TABLE (DOUBLE LAST SUPPER)* (2019)
Artwork © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Thumbnail - Installation view. Artwork © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Thumbnail - Installation view with Sterling Ruby, TABLE (DOUBLE LAST SUPPER) (2019). Artwork © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Lucy Dawkins

Works Exhibited

Sterling Ruby, ACTS/OSIRIS-REx, 2016. Clear urethane blocks, dye, wood, spray paint, and laminate, 66 ½ × 175 ⅛ × 35 inches (168.9 × 444.8 × 88.9 cm) © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer — Sterling Ruby
*ACTS/OSIRIS-REx*, 2016
Clear urethane blocks, dye, wood, spray paint, and laminate, 66 ½ × 175 ⅛ × 35 inches (168.9 × 444.8 × 88.9 cm)
© Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer

Sterling Ruby, ACTS/OSIRIS-REx, 2016 (detail). Clear urethane blocks, dye, wood, spray paint, and laminate, 66 ½ × 175 ⅛ × 35 inches (168.9 × 444.8 × 88.9 cm) © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer — Sterling Ruby
*ACTS/OSIRIS-REx*, 2016 (detail)
Clear urethane blocks, dye, wood, spray paint, and laminate, 66 ½ × 175 ⅛ × 35 inches (168.9 × 444.8 × 88.9 cm)
© Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer

Sterling Ruby, ACTS/PROXIMA, 2018. Clear urethane blocks, dye, wood, spray paint, and laminate, 66 ½ × 175 ½ × 35 ⅛ inches (168.9 × 445.8 × 89.2 cm) © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer — Sterling Ruby
*ACTS/PROXIMA*, 2018
Clear urethane blocks, dye, wood, spray paint, and laminate, 66 ½ × 175 ½ × 35 ⅛ inches (168.9 × 445.8 × 89.2 cm)
© Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer

Sterling Ruby, ACTS/PROXIMA, 2018 (detail). Clear urethane blocks, dye, wood, spray paint, and laminate, 66 ½ × 175 ½ × 35 ⅛ inches (168.9 × 445.8 × 89.2 cm) © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer — Sterling Ruby
*ACTS/PROXIMA*, 2018 (detail)
Clear urethane blocks, dye, wood, spray paint, and laminate, 66 ½ × 175 ½ × 35 ⅛ inches (168.9 × 445.8 × 89.2 cm)
© Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer

Sterling Ruby, ACTS/PRAYING MANTLE, 2015. Clear urethane blocks, dye, wood, spray paint, and laminate, 66 ½ × 174 ⅛ × 35 ⅛ inches (168.9 × 442.3 × 89.2 cm) © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer — Sterling Ruby
*ACTS/PRAYING MANTLE*, 2015
Clear urethane blocks, dye, wood, spray paint, and laminate, 66 ½ × 174 ⅛ × 35 ⅛ inches (168.9 × 442.3 × 89.2 cm)
© Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer

Sterling Ruby, ACTS/ROBITUSSIN, 2016. Clear urethane blocks, dye, wood, spray paint, and laminate, 66 ½ × 175 ⅜ × 35 ⅛ inches (168.9 × 445.5 × 89.2 cm) © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer — Sterling Ruby
*ACTS/ROBITUSSIN*, 2016
Clear urethane blocks, dye, wood, spray paint, and laminate, 66 ½ × 175 ⅜ × 35 ⅛ inches (168.9 × 445.5 × 89.2 cm)
© Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer

Sterling Ruby, ACTS/ROBITUSSIN, 2016 (detail). Clear urethane blocks, dye, wood, spray paint, and laminate, 66 ½ × 175 ⅜ × 35 ⅛ inches (168.9 × 445.5 × 89.2 cm) © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer — Sterling Ruby
*ACTS/ROBITUSSIN*, 2016 (detail)
Clear urethane blocks, dye, wood, spray paint, and laminate, 66 ½ × 175 ⅜ × 35 ⅛ inches (168.9 × 445.5 × 89.2 cm)
© Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer

Sterling Ruby, TABLE (DOUBLE LAST SUPPER), 2019. Cast iron, brass, and steel, 66 × 348 × 56 inches (167.6 × 883.9 × 142.2 cm) © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer — Sterling Ruby
*TABLE (DOUBLE LAST SUPPER)*, 2019
Cast iron, brass, and steel, 66 × 348 × 56 inches (167.6 × 883.9 × 142.2 cm)
© Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer

Sterling Ruby, TABLE (DOUBLE LAST SUPPER), 2019 (detail). Cast iron, brass, and steel, 66 × 348 × 56 inches (167.6 × 883.9 × 142.2 cm) © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer — Sterling Ruby
*TABLE (DOUBLE LAST SUPPER)*, 2019 (detail)
Cast iron, brass, and steel, 66 × 348 × 56 inches (167.6 × 883.9 × 142.2 cm)
© Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer

Thumbnail - Sterling Ruby, ACTS/OSIRIS-REx, 2016. Clear urethane blocks, dye, wood, spray paint, and laminate, 66 ½ × 175 ⅛ × 35 inches (168.9 × 444.8 × 88.9 cm) © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer

Thumbnail - Sterling Ruby, ACTS/OSIRIS-REx, 2016 (detail). Clear urethane blocks, dye, wood, spray paint, and laminate, 66 ½ × 175 ⅛ × 35 inches (168.9 × 444.8 × 88.9 cm) © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer

Thumbnail - Sterling Ruby, ACTS/PROXIMA, 2018. Clear urethane blocks, dye, wood, spray paint, and laminate, 66 ½ × 175 ½ × 35 ⅛ inches (168.9 × 445.8 × 89.2 cm) © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer

Thumbnail - Sterling Ruby, ACTS/PROXIMA, 2018 (detail). Clear urethane blocks, dye, wood, spray paint, and laminate, 66 ½ × 175 ½ × 35 ⅛ inches (168.9 × 445.8 × 89.2 cm) © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer

Thumbnail - Sterling Ruby, ACTS/PRAYING MANTLE, 2015. Clear urethane blocks, dye, wood, spray paint, and laminate, 66 ½ × 174 ⅛ × 35 ⅛ inches (168.9 × 442.3 × 89.2 cm) © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer

Thumbnail - Sterling Ruby, ACTS/ROBITUSSIN, 2016. Clear urethane blocks, dye, wood, spray paint, and laminate, 66 ½ × 175 ⅜ × 35 ⅛ inches (168.9 × 445.5 × 89.2 cm) © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer

Thumbnail - Sterling Ruby, ACTS/ROBITUSSIN, 2016 (detail). Clear urethane blocks, dye, wood, spray paint, and laminate, 66 ½ × 175 ⅜ × 35 ⅛ inches (168.9 × 445.5 × 89.2 cm) © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer

Thumbnail - Sterling Ruby, TABLE (DOUBLE LAST SUPPER), 2019. Cast iron, brass, and steel, 66 × 348 × 56 inches (167.6 × 883.9 × 142.2 cm) © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer

Thumbnail - Sterling Ruby, TABLE (DOUBLE LAST SUPPER), 2019 (detail). Cast iron, brass, and steel, 66 × 348 × 56 inches (167.6 × 883.9 × 142.2 cm) © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer

About

I use many different media as a kind of schizophrenic labor strategy. It seems very easy now to say it, but it has taken me years to convey that this scattered routine belongs within a coherent trajectory. . . . There is a lineage that links everything that I do together.
—Sterling Ruby

Gagosian is pleased to present sculptures by Sterling Ruby at Britannia Street. This is his first solo exhibition with the gallery in London. On view will be works from two series, ACTS (2006–18) and TABLES (2015–19).

In an oeuvre spanning sculpture, ceramics, painting, drawing, collage, video, and garments, Ruby continually returns to themes of societal and art historical friction, generating feelings of anxiety and agitation by contrasting clean lines and recognizable objects with coarse and uncanny forms. ACTS + TABLE lays out Ruby’s critique of the authoritarian, exclusionary ideological underpinnings of Minimalism. He begins with familiar shapes valued by the Minimalists—simple tables and rectilinear blocks—but subverts them by defacing their smooth surfaces and exposing their physical means of production.

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Sterling Ruby

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From the Quarterly

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.

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 Gagosian in New York.

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