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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

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

Photo: Melanie Schiff

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

Sterling Ruby’s 2021 haute couture collection APPARITIONS

Design

Haute Couture Week
Sterling Ruby

January 25–28, 2021

Sterling Ruby debuts his first haute couture collection, APPARITIONS, on January 28, during Haute Couture Week spring/summer 2021. Created at the invitation of the Fédération de la Haute Couture et de la Mode in Paris, the collection explores the intersection of fashion, art, craft, and culture. Responding to the tension between historical and contemporary American narratives, figures walk like specters in a post-apocalyptic landscape imagined from footage filmed by Ruby in an empty paintball park in Southern California. Created in Ruby’s studio in Los Angeles, the S.R. STUDIO. LA. CA. couture expands 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 watch the show, visit srstudio.com.

Sterling Ruby’s 2021 haute couture collection APPARITIONS

Sterling Ruby. Photo: Melanie Schiff

Artist Talk

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

Ed Ruscha, The Future, 1999 © Ed Ruscha. Photo: Jeff McLane

Exhibition

The Future

November 30, 2020–January 31, 2021
gagosian-deitch.com

Gagosian is pleased to announce The Future, the sixth in a series of annual thematic exhibitions presented by Gagosian and Jeffrey Deitch during Art Basel Miami Beach. Previously staged at the historic Moore Building in the Miami Design District, this year the collaborative project will be hosted on a new stand-alone website.

Ed Ruscha, The Future, 1999 © Ed Ruscha. Photo: Jeff McLane

Katharina Grosse, Shake Before Using, 2020 © Katharina Grosse and VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany 2020

Fundraiser

Artist Plate Project 2020
Coalition for the Homeless

November 16–December 14, 2020

Gagosian is pleased to support the Coalition for the Homeless’s Artist Plate Project fundraiser. Artwork by fifty artists, including Cecily Brown, Katharina Grosse, Sterling Ruby, Ed Ruscha, Sarah Sze, Andy Warhol, Jonas Wood, and Christopher Wool, is featured on limited-edition dinner plates produced by Prospect and made available through Artware Editions to support the Coalition’s lifesaving programs. All of the funds raised by the sale of the plates will provide food, crisis services, housing, and other critical aid to thousands of people experiencing homelessness and instability. The purchase of one plate can feed seventy-five homeless and hungry New Yorkers.

Katharina Grosse, Shake Before Using, 2020 © Katharina Grosse and VG Bild-Kunst, Bonn, Germany 2020

See all Events for Sterling Ruby

Announcements

Still of Sterling Ruby in conversation with Sam Orlofsky

Video

Sterling Ruby
Frieze London 2019 Online Viewing Room

Sterling Ruby sits down in his studio with Gagosian director Sam Orlofsky to discuss the Online Viewing Room collaboration on the occasion of Frieze London 2019, as well as his influences and the history of his work. Highlighting Ruby’s multidisciplinary approach to art making, this online event features seven artworks from pivotal moments in his trajectory, alongside a range of art historical influences that have shaped his practice over time.

To subscribe for updates about Online Viewing Room presentations, visit gagosianviewingroom.com.

Still of Sterling Ruby in conversation with Sam Orlofsky

Museum Exhibitions

Chris Burden, Kunst Kick (3 photographs and text), 1974 (detail), The Warehouse, Dallas © 2024 Chris Burden/Licensed by the Chris Burden Estate and Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: courtesy Chris Burden Estate

On View

For What It’s Worth
Value Systems in Art since 1960

Through June 29, 2024
The Warehouse, Dallas
thewarehousedallas.org

Looking at global, conceptual art tendencies since 1960, For What It’s Worth focuses on artists who generate, question, and infect value systems through their work. These systems might address exchange, social structures, or philosophical intangibles, and many of the selected works share an exploration of the codification of values through language and patterns of behavior. Work by Chris Burden and Sterling Ruby is included.

Chris Burden, Kunst Kick (3 photographs and text), 1974 (detail), The Warehouse, Dallas © 2024 Chris Burden/Licensed by the Chris Burden Estate and Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: courtesy Chris Burden Estate

Installation view, Un patrimoine méconnu. Tableaux du diocèse de Paris du XVe au XXe siècle, Collège des Bernardins, Paris, October 18–December 16, 2023. Artwork © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Thomas Lannes

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Sterling Ruby in
Un patrimoine méconnu. Tableaux du diocèse de Paris du XVe au XXe siècle

October 18–December 16, 2023
Collège des Bernardins, Paris
www.collegedesbernardins.fr

This exhibition, whose title translates to A Little-Known Heritage: Paintings from the Diocese of Paris from the Fifteenth to the Twentieth Centuries, places fourteen rarely seen paintings from the collection of the diocese in dialogue with a work by Sterling Ruby. Ruby’s ceramic sculpture Basin Theology/BRAVAMAX (2014) alludes to the rich Christian symbolism of the basin as a purifying vessel. Made by fusing discarded clay shards into a new form, the work engages the paintings’ sacred themes.

Installation view, Un patrimoine méconnu. Tableaux du diocèse de Paris du XVe au XXe siècle, Collège des Bernardins, Paris, October 18–December 16, 2023. Artwork © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Thomas Lannes

Jonas Wood, Patterned Interior with Mar Vista View, 2020, Rachofsky Collection, installation view, The Warehouse, Dallas © Jonas Wood. Photo: Kevin Todora

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Room by Room
Concepts, Themes, and Artists in the Rachofsky Collection

September 9–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, Carol Bove, Alex Israel, Sterling Ruby, and Jonas Wood is included.

Jonas Wood, Patterned Interior with Mar Vista View, 2020, Rachofsky Collection, installation view, The Warehouse, Dallas © Jonas Wood. Photo: Kevin Todora

Sterling Ruby, BLACK STOVE I, 2014 © Sterling Ruby

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Sterling Ruby in
ARTZUID 2023

May 20–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

Sterling Ruby, HEX, 2022, installation view, Berggruen Arts & Culture, Venice © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Andrea Avezzù

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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

VEIL FLAG by S.R. STUDIO. LA. CA./Sterling Ruby

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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

Sterling Ruby, FLOWER (7852), 2021 © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer

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Sterling Ruby in
Contre-nature: La céramique, une épreuve du feu

May 21–September 4, 2022
MO.CO. Panacée, Montpellier, France
www.moco.art

This exhibition, whose title translates to Against Nature: Ceramics, a test of fire, presents ceramics less as folklore and more as modeling, alchemy, technique, and magic where insolent, hybrid shapes made of clay and enamel compose a luxuriant, original, mysterious, troubling, and sometimes hallucinatory world. Work by Sterling Ruby is included.

Sterling Ruby, FLOWER (7852), 2021 © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer

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Textiles de Artistas

March 12–June 19, 2022
Fundacíon Barrié, A Coruña, Spain
fundacionbarrie.org

This exhibition explores the history of twentieth-century art through fabrics designed by artists, with unique examples from artistic movements such as Fauvism, Cubism, Surrealism, and Pop art. Comprised of more than one hundred works, the show presents an important overview of weaving as a popular art form in the United Kingdom, the United States, and Europe. Work by Alexander Calder, Damien Hirst, Howard Hodgkin, Henry Moore, Pablo Picasso, Sterling Ruby, and Andy Warhol is included.

Installation view, Making Knowing: Craft in Art, 1950–2019, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, November 22, 2019–February 20, 2022. Artwork, left to right: © Claes Oldenburg; © Yayoi Kusama; © 2022 The Estate of Richard Artschwager/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Ron Amstutz

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Making Knowing
Craft in Art, 1950–2019

November 22, 2019–February 20, 2022
Whitney Museum of American Art, New York
whitney.org

Making Knowing: Craft in Art, 1950–2019 foregrounds how visual artists have explored the materials, methods, and strategies of craft over the past seven decades. Some expand techniques with long histories, such as weaving, sewing, or pottery, while others experiment with clay, beads, and glass, among other mediums. Work by Richard Artschwager and Sterling Ruby is included.

Installation view, Making Knowing: Craft in Art, 1950–2019, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, November 22, 2019–February 20, 2022. Artwork, left to right: © Claes Oldenburg; © Yayoi Kusama; © 2022 The Estate of Richard Artschwager/Artists Rights Society (ARS), New York. Photo: Ron Amstutz

Sterling Ruby, SP132, 2010 © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer

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Sterling Ruby in
Christian Dior: Designer of Dreams

September 10, 2021–February 20, 2022
Brooklyn Museum, New York
www.brooklynmuseum.org

This exhibition traces the groundbreaking history and legacy of the House of Dior, bringing to life Dior’s many sources of inspiration, from the splendor of flowers and other natural forms to classical and contemporary art. With objects drawn primarily from the Dior archives, it includes over two hundred haute couture garments as well as photographs, archival videos, sketches, vintage perfume elements, accessories, and works from the museum’s collection. Work by Sterling Ruby is included.

Sterling Ruby, SP132, 2010 © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Robert Wedemeyer

Installation view, Sterling Ruby, Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome, November 20–December 19, 2021. Artwork © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Matteo D’Eletto M3 Studio

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Sterling Ruby

November 20–December 19, 2021
Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome
www.doriapamphilj.it

In a rare occasion, work by Sterling Ruby is installed in the Toletta di Venere of the Galleria Doria Pamphilj museum in Rome, a repository of old master paintings housed in the private palazzo of one of Italy’s longest-established collecting families, in conjunction with the artist’s exhibition at Gagosian, Rome. The Doria Pamphilj collection includes Diego Velázquez’s Portrait of Pope Innocent X (1650), which famously inspired several reinterpretations by Francis Bacon. Ruby is exhibiting a painting created especially for this presentation, WIDW. CRASH CULTURE. (2021), as well as a ceramic sculpture, BONNET (7483) (2020).

Installation view, Sterling Ruby, Galleria Doria Pamphilj, Rome, November 20–December 19, 2021. Artwork © Sterling Ruby. Photo: Matteo D’Eletto M3 Studio

Installation view, Sterling Ruby at Cycladic: Ceramics, Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens, May 14–June 27, 2021. Artwork © Sterling Ruby

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Sterling Ruby at Cycladic
Ceramics

May 14–June 27, 2021
Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens
cycladic.gr

In this exhibition, Sterling Ruby places a selection of his ceramic sculptures among the rare artifacts of the Museum of Cycladic Art’s permanent collection as well as in the museum’s temporary exhibition wing. Ruby’s works—which here include smaller utilitarian objects, larger basins, as well as figurative, floral, and totemic forms—converse with representative examples of figurines, tools, weapons, and pottery from the distinctive culture that flourished in the central Aegean during the Early Bronze Age.

Installation view, Sterling Ruby at Cycladic: Ceramics, Museum of Cycladic Art, Athens, May 14–June 27, 2021. Artwork © Sterling Ruby

See all Museum Exhibitions for Sterling Ruby