Sterling Ruby and Robert Hobbs
@ The Art Institute of Chicago
111 S Michigan Ave, Chicago, IL 60603
Opening Wednesday, February 17th, from 6PM - 7:30PM
Lauded in 2008 by New York Times critic Roberta Smith as “one of the most interesting artists to emerge in this century,” Sterling Ruby explores individual desire, transgression, social power structures, neurosis, and paranoia through a diverse practice that includes richly glazed amorphous ceramics, large-scale spray painted canvases, hypnotic videos, poured urethane sculptures, inscribed Formica monoliths, nail polish drawings, and collage. Fusing sources from various pop culture and art historical references—such as body builders, ancient art, graffiti, maximum-security prisons, modernist architecture, Minimalism, transvestites, pornography, cults, and gang members—Ruby’s art perhaps can be summed up best by his widely quoted anti-poster “Finish Architecture. Kill Minimalism. Long Live the Amorphous Law.”
Since 1991 art historian Robert Hobbs has held the Rhoda Thalhimer Endowed Chair at Virginia Commonwealth University and has been a visiting professor at Yale University since 2004. His work joins social history with literary criticism and aesthetics while relying on feminist and postcolonial theory.
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