Listen to me carefully, you bunch of snobs. I know you all want to pretend that you perfectly understand the sprawling work of Sterling Ruby, this American artist who blows up the boundaries between mediums with a virtuosity that leaves you speechless. But let me tell you that you understand nothing. Absolutely nothing.
Because beyond the glittering surfaces of his monumental ceramics and the delicate folds of his textile sculptures lies a deeper, more disturbing truth: Ruby is the artist who best embodies our anxious era. Through his protean work – painting, sculpture, ceramics, textile, video – he dissects with surgical precision the neuroses of contemporary America, creating a true archaeology of the collective unconscious.
This psychic exploration finds its most striking expression in his “Basin Theology”, immense ceramic basins that function as artistic mass graves. Ruby crams the broken fragments of his failed works into them, covering them with thick glazes evoking coagulated blood or molten lava. These monumental pieces, sometimes more than a meter wide, embody our ambiguous relationship with failure and destruction. In “Basin Theology/HATRA” (2014), the deep blue-black surface seems to absorb light, creating a dizzying chasm effect where the fragments of earlier works dissolve. “Basin Theology/SKINHEAD” (2013) presents a tormented surface where shards of ceramic emerge like bones from an archaeological site, covered in blood-red glaze that coagulates into thick crusts.
This obsession with cycles of life and death resonates profoundly with Melanie Klein’s theories on the schizoparanoid position. According to Klein, the infant oscillates between states of anxiety-driven fragmentation and attempts at integration, between fear of annihilation and the desire for repair. The “Basin Theology” manifest this same primitive dynamic – both vulnerable and menacing, fragmented and unified. The glaze that covers the debris acts as a psychic skin, a protective membrane attempting to contain the threat of disintegration. This Kleinian notion of psychic containment finds a particular echo in the way Ruby transforms these basins into symbolic receptacles for the residues of his artistic practice.
His famous “Stalagmites”, monumental polyurethane sculptures, push further this exploration of primitive anxieties. Their phallic verticality, which can reach several meters in height, is counterbalanced by an apparent fragility, as if they risk collapsing under their own weight. In “Monument Stalagmite/The Shining” (2011), the frozen drips of bright red polyurethane create a bloody waterfall effect, evoking the emblematic scene from Kubrick’s film where blood gushes from the elevators. Ruby here explores what Julia Kristeva calls the abject – that murky zone where the distinctions between subject and object become porous. The frozen drips evoke bodily fluids threatening the integrity of the social body, transforming industrial material into a metaphor for our collective fears of contamination.
This ambivalence finds a new echo in the “SOFT WORKS” series, where anthropomorphic textile forms evoke both martyrized bodies and ghostly creatures. “Vampire” (2011), a giant suspended mouth whose fabric fangs drip with fake drops of blood, perfectly embodies this tension between the familiar and the strange. By sewing and assembling recycled fabrics, including faded American flags, Ruby creates unsettling hybrids that embody what Freud called “the uncanny.” These soft sculptures, reminiscent of transitional objects theorized by Winnicott, transform the reassuring comfort of the domestic into something alien and hostile.
The installation “SUPERMAX 2008” at MOCA Los Angeles anchors his work in a sharp critique of the American prison system. The austere geometric forms and deformed surfaces create a fascinating dialogue between penitentiary architecture and minimalism. “Inscribed Plinth for Joseph DeLange” (2008) presents a formica pedestal covered with graffiti and compulsive inscriptions, like the walls of a prison cell. Ruby subverts the grids and modular structures of minimal art to reveal their oppressive potential, echoing Foucault’s analyses of disciplinary architecture in “Discipline and Punish.”
In his paintings from the “SP” series, the use of spray paint creates hallucinatory landscapes in acid colors. “SP231” (2012) deploys dizzying gradients of fluorescent pink and deep black, creating an effect of toxic depth. The technique itself, associated with urban graffiti, becomes a means of expression that is both violent and poetic. The overlay of translucent layers evokes a poisoned atmosphere, creating a psychic mapping of our environmental malaise. These works recall Morris Louis’s experiments with liquid color but in a version where fluidity becomes poison.
The “SCALES”, monumental mobiles combining geometric forms and found objects, embody the precarious search for balance that runs throughout Ruby’s work. “SCALE/BATS, BLOCKS, DROP” (2015) combines industrial motor blocks with baseball bats, creating a menacing choreography reminiscent of Calder’s mobiles in a nightmarish version. The perpetual movement of these sculptures keeps the viewer in a constant state of alert, between wonder and the threat of collapse.
His video series “TRANSIENT TRILOGY” explores the margins of society through the figure of a vagabond creating ephemeral installations with debris. This character, whom Ruby embodies himself, echoes Michel de Certeau’s theories on the daily resistance tactics developed in “The Practice of Everyday Life.” The camera observes these solitary rituals with clinical distance, creating a tension between anthropological document and artistic performance. The character’s obsessive gestures, his way of collecting and arranging debris, evoke compulsive behaviors analyzed by Freud in “The Rat Man.”
Textiles hold a singular place in this identity exploration. His monumental “quilts” revisit the American patchwork tradition, creating compositions where faded fabrics, military motifs, and industrial residues mingle. “BC (4357)” (2012) combines fragments of faded jeans with camouflage patterns, creating an abstract mapping of American social tensions. The technique becomes a metaphor for national construction – a fragile assembly of disparate fragments held together by always-threatened stitches.
This textile practice finds an unexpected extension in Ruby’s collaborations with the fashion world. His line S.R. STUDIO. LA. CA. transforms clothing into wearable sculptures marked by artistic processes – stains of paint, discoloration, assemblages. This democratization of art fulfills the old avant-garde dream of integrating art into daily life while questioning the boundaries between creation and consumption.
Ruby’s recent installations reach a form of synthesis of all these concerns. “STATE” (2019), a monumental video projection filmed by drone, flies over California’s 35 state prisons. The aerial images alternate between sublime landscapes and prison architecture, creating a striking counterpoint between natural beauty and institutional brutality. The percussive soundtrack, composed by the artist, adds an anxious dimension that keeps the viewer in a state of permanent tension.
The “TURBINES” series (2021) may mark the emergence of a new direction in Ruby’s work. These large abstract paintings incorporate fragments of cardboard on dyed canvases, creating dynamic compositions that evoke explosions or storms. Drawing inspiration from Russian constructivism, Ruby transforms violence into creative energy, suggesting the possibility of rebirth within chaos.
This ability to metamorphose destruction into creation runs through all of Ruby’s works. Each series functions as an attempt to give form to the formless, to contain the uncontainable. The humblest materials – cardboard, worn fabric, broken ceramics – become vectors of an aesthetic experience confronting us with our deepest anxieties while opening up perspectives for transformation.
For it is here that Ruby’s unique strength resides: his ability to transform our collective fears into meaningful forms while maintaining a radical engagement with material. Each work becomes an act of resistance, affirming the possibility of creating meaning even at the heart of darkness. The artist acts as a contemporary alchemist, transmuting the toxic residues of our civilization into objects of disturbing beauty that force us to confront our condition.
So yes, you bunch of snobs, keep repeating your platitudes about crossing artistic boundaries. You will miss the essential: Ruby’s unique ability to shape the unspeakable of our time, to open paths of transformation and renewal within our chaotic present. His work reminds us that the most powerful art often arises from confronting our inner demons, from the ability to transform our anxieties into creative energy. In a world that seems to be running towards its doom, Ruby shows us that it is still possible to create beauty from chaos, hope from despair.
