Sterling Ruby. A RELIEF LASHED + A STILL POSE

Sterling Ruby. A RELIEF LASHED + A STILL POSE

18.06.2020 - 01.08.2020
Xavier Hufkens
44 rue Van Eyck | Van Eyckstraat

Xavier Hufkens is delighted to announce the opening of the gallery’s third exhibition space in Brussels, at 44 Rue Van Eyck. Designed by the Belgian architect Bernard Dubois, the addition of a new space will strengthen the gallery’s dynamic approach to exhibition-making and offer new opportunities to the artists of the gallery. The new gallery is approximately 350 m2 and is located just 100 meters from the St-Georges location.

About the new gallery space, Xavier Hufkens says in a statement:

We could have opened abroad but chose to stay in Brussels. I want to prioritise quality over anything else, as it has always been the thread of our program. The third space will give our artists new spatial possibilities, new opportunities and challenges, supported by an experienced team. I want the gallery to be a destination, both physically and intellectually. A place where artists, art enthusiasts, collectors and students can come together. If we do this right, I believe art can reach beyond our walls. The new gallery space will be inaugurated by artist Sterling Ruby as of June 18th with a new series of assemblages. The origins of these works can be traced back to the WIDW paintings that were first exhibited at the gallery in 2018. Digging ever deeper into his on-going fascination with the formal equation of the window, here the artist presents an ensemble of three-dimensional constructions in which painterly and sculptural techniques converge.

Sterling Ruby is known for the multifaceted nature of his practice, which encompasses painting, ceramics, collage, video and photography, textiles, sculpture and installations. Working in a wide range of media, from the traditional to the unconventional, Ruby has created an oeuvre that, while remarkably diverse, is firmly rooted within a complex and coherent artistic strategy.

Often drawing upon autobiographical, art historical or sociological sources, Ruby’s work is frequently referred to as ‘post-humanist’ – a term that broadly describes a society which, thanks in part to technological advancement, has evolved beyond fixed categories of being (e.g. time/place), or predetermining classifications (e.g. animal/human). The seemingly ‘incomprehensible’ visual range of Ruby’s practice thus embodies a schizophrenic, ‘post-everything’ state of perpetual fragmentation and synthesis. A world in which, according to Ruby, ‘there is just too much information for anything to be coherent or whole.’ His practice involves a combination of philosophical enquiry and material investigation, the latter involving the seemingly endless repurposing, combining and recombining of different techniques and media. This too mirrors a shifting condition of constant deconstruction and reconfiguration, and the idea of a non-hierarchical, boundary-less universe.

Sterling Ruby (b. 1972) lives and works in Los Angeles. In 2014 his work was included in the Whitney Biennial, the 10th Gwangju Biennale and the 9th Taipei Biennial. Public collections include the Guggenheim Museum, NY; Whitney Museum of American Art, NY; MoMA, NY; MoCA, Chicago; Walker Art Center, Minneapolis; MoCA, Los Angeles; LACMA, Los Angeles; Hammer Museum, Los Angeles; SFMOMA, San Francisco; MMFA, Montreal; Musée d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Moderna Museet, Stockholm; Louisiana Museum of Modern Art, Humlebaek; and Tate Modern, London.