Public Installation
Sterling Ruby
Desert X 2019
February 9–April 21, 2019
Coachella Valley, Whitewater, California
www.desertx.org
Sterling Ruby’s fluorescent orange monolith SPECTER (2019), appears as an apparition in the desert as part of Desert X, a contemporary-art biennial in Coachella Valley, California. The artist’s brightly colored geometric sculpture creates a jarring optical illusion, giving the landscape the effect of a Photoshopped composite or collage, as if something has been removed or erased from the terrain.
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Sterling Ruby, SPECTER, 2019 © Sterling Ruby
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Public Installation
Sterling Ruby
SPECTERS TOKYO
November 23–December 23, 2023
Sogetsu Kaikan, Tokyo
www.sogetsu.or.jp
In SPECTERS TOKYO, Sterling Ruby’s first public installation in Japan, the artist creates a dialogue with Isamu Noguchi’s indoor stone garden Heaven (1977–78), which is permanently installed in the lobby of the Sogetsu Foundation headquarters. Exploring the interactions between the living and the dead, Ruby’s site-specific work draws influence from kaidan, a genre of Japanese ghost stories. The otherworldly scene includes spectral figures made from heavily worn, tattered textiles and found objects that are suspended from the ceiling like puppets.
Installation view, Sterling Ruby: SPECTERS TOKYO, Sogetsu Kaikan, Tokyo, November 23–December 23, 2023. Artwork © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Kenji Takahashi, courtesy Taka Ishii Gallery, Tokyo
In Conversation
Sterling Ruby
Tim Blanks
Tuesday, March 2, 2021, 12pm est
Sterling Ruby will speak with Tim Blanks, editor of the Business of Fashion, about his artistic process and foray into haute couture, as well as how he has stayed creative during the pandemic. The haute couture collection was created in Ruby’s Los Angeles studio, expanding the idea of the artist’s studio as atelier. Garment construction—from pattern-drafting and 3-D draping to dyeing, washing, and rinsing—occurs under the same roof as metalworking, oil painting, and ceramic firing. To join the online event, register at businessoffashion.zoom.us.
Photo: Melanie Schiff
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Sterling Ruby
(At Home) On Art and the American Psyche
Wednesday, December 2, 2020, 7–8pm est
Sterling Ruby will speak with former Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden chief curator Stéphane Aquin about his multifaceted art practice and his monumental sculpture DOUBLE CANDLE (2018), recently acquired by the museum and installed in their Sculpture Garden in Washington, DC. In addition to demonstrating Ruby’s belief in an embedded unification of both formal and political concerns, DOUBLE CANDLE brings together his interest in textiles and “soft sculpture”—the 23-foot-tall bronze sculpture is based on a “soft” version of the work that was recently on view in an exhibition surveying Ruby’s work at the Institute of Contemporary Art in Miami and the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston. This virtual event is part of Talking to Our Time, the Hirshhorn’s online series of free talks featuring a diverse group of artists and collectives. To join, register at smithsonian.zoom.us.
Sterling Ruby. Photo: Melanie Schiff
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