Sterling Ruby at Frieze Seoul

Xavier Hufkens is proud to participate in the 2022 edition of Frieze Seoul with a solo presentation of new works by Sterling Ruby (b. 1972). Ruby’s interdisciplinary practice incorporates sculptures, collages, ceramics, paintings and videos, which act as markers and metaphors for the burdens of contemporary existence. He is interested in the tensions between fluidity and stasis, Expressionism and Minimalism, the abject and the pristine.

On view at Frieze Seoul, the artist’s TURBINE subseries combines the same materials as his WIDW paintings yet departs from the motif of a stark division ruling the center of the canvas. In these new works, wind pushes materials up against the edges of the frame, as if they are caught in a whirling motion. Rather than action occurring from behind the window frame, signaling that the audience is looking in or out at something, the viewer is thrust into the energy of the mechanical propulsion itself. The TURBINE works are turbulent, stormy, and combustible. A violent wind has blown the window down, blasted it apart, leaving its materials circling in a cyclonic state. Evoking the Russian Constructivist tilt and the speed of the Futurists, these works revisit the notion of formal self-destruction. Oil paint and colorful swatches of cardboard are blown together, perennially cycling, reinforcing the kinetic power contained within the bounds of the painting.

Sterling Ruby lives and works in Los Angeles. He is currently the first artist- in-residence at Berggruen Arts & Culture at Palazzo Diedo in Venice, Italy. A comprehensive survey on his work was exhibited at ICA Boston (2020) and ICA Miami (2019). In 2014, his work was included in the Whitney Biennial, the 10th Gwangju Biennale and the 9th Taipei Biennial. Ruby’s works are included in the permanent collections of major museums internationally.