Institute of Contemporary Art Miami ICA Miami

ICA Miami presents the first comprehensive museum survey of American/Dutch artist Sterling Ruby.

The exhibition features over 100 works that demonstrate the relationship between material transformation in Ruby’s practice and the rapid evolution of contemporary culture, institutions, and labor. Spanning more than two decades of the artist’s career, the exhibition features an array of works created in various mediums, from his renowned ceramics and paintings to lesser-known drawings and installations.

Since his earliest works, Ruby has investigated the role of the artist as an outsider. Critiquing the structures of modernism and traditional institutions, Ruby addresses the repressed underpinnings of American culture and the coding of power and violence. Craft is central to his inquiry, as he explores traditions from Amish quilt-making to California’s radical ceramics tradition, shaped by his upbringing in Pennsylvania Dutch country.

“Sterling Ruby” is co-presented with the Institute of Contemporary Art/Boston (ICA/Boston) and is accompanied by an illustrated scholarly catalogue edited by Alex Gartenfeld and Eva Respini, with an interview by Isabelle Graw.

Sterling Ruby (b. 1972, American/Dutch) has presented solo exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2008); Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Italy (2008–2009); Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rome (2013); and Baltimore Museum of Art, Maryland (2014); and the Belvedere, Vienna (2016); among others.

“Sterling Ruby” is curated by ICA Miami Artistic Director Alex Gartenfeld and ICA/Boston Barbara Lee Chief Curator Eva Respini.