Sterling Ruby

This exhibition will be the first European survey of the work of one of the most important, influential, and controversial American artists of his generation: Los Angeles-based Sterling Ruby. It will span a decade of works, including his urethane and bronze sculptures, hallucinatory color-field canvases, and handmade ceramics, all of which address the conflict between individual desire and social structure, and the influence of institutional architecture—both literal and figurative—on human behavior and psychology. The refined and solemn, baroque environment of the Winter Palace will establish a very challenging contrast with Ruby’s artistic motifs and aesthetics such as urban demarcation, vandalism, and the power struggles of gang graffiti. The resultant sharply conflicting montage of history and geography, past and present, European and American controversies will start a dialogue and initiate mental associations between images and references, ultimately questioning viewers’ perception of contemporary life and its contradictions.