NANCY RUBINS
OUR FRIEND FLUID METAL
Gagosian Gallery
522 West 21st Street - New York
17/7/2014 - 13/9/2014
Gagosian is pleased to present “Our Friend Fluid Metal,” Nancy Rubins'
first exhibition of major sculptures in New York since the presentation of Big
Pleasure Point by the Public Art Fund at Lincoln Center in 2006.
Rubins'
awe-inspiring sculptures are predicated on synthesis, radically articulated
mass, and explosive ideas in three dimensions. Geological in scope and
metastatic in formation, these rhizomatic structures brim with dark energy,
pointing to the inexorable proliferation of manmade refuse. Objects clustered by
way of strategic engineering resemble organic reactions; forms mimic living
things that grow, mutate, and multiply as defiant growths bursting from tensile
constraints, their power enhanced by sheer scale and precarious balance.
Rubins' gigantic, physically overwhelming assemblages sit between the
oppositional traditions of monumental sculpture, both figurative and abstract,
and intimist bricolage that emphasizes the aesthetic possibilities of everyday
found objects. In her use of scrap materials and the individual artistic
decisions governing their accumulation, Rubins engages the work of Schwitters in
the same sweep as that of Picasso and the Cubists; however by combining these
elements in a fashion that is as improbable as it is spectacular, she recasts
humble materials as the fantastic residue of baroque fantasy, sliced through
with a strong dose of surrealist disbelief.
The title of the exhibition and
its sculptures “Our Friend Fluid Metal” invokes the currency and mutability of
aluminum scrap recycled through changing historical, social, and economic
conditions; the playground critters that are the building blocks or cells of the
new sculptures are made with aluminum reconstituted from military planes. A
constellation of four sculptures of varying scale present a carnivalesque riot
of found color and form, clustered in webs of compression and tension. The
largest, which measures 17 x 42 x 24 feet, breaks out of a wall and looms
overhead, a sculptural cumulus that makes light of its expected permanence and
weight via a system of compound steel trusses and tension cables. Smaller scale
works rise from a single point on the ground and balloon into the air. The
nonsense terms that form their titles—Chunkus Majoris, Paquito, and Spiral
Ragusso—point to the lighter side of scientific taxonomy.
Nancy Rubins was
born in Naples, Texas; raised in Tullahoma, Tennessee; and studied at the
Maryland Institute, College of Art, Baltimore (BFA, 1974) and the University of
California, Davis (MFA, 1976). She currently lives and works in Topanga Canyon,
California. Public collections include Museum of Modern Art, New York; Whitney
Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles;
Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego; and FRAC Bourgogne, France. Solo
exhibitions include Museum of Modern Art, New York (1995); Aspen Art Museum
(1997); ARTPACE, San Antonio (1997); Miami Art Museum (1999); Fondation Cartier
pour l'Art Contemporain, Paris (2002); FRAC Bourgogne, France (2005);
SculptureCenter, Long Island City, New York (2006); Lincoln Center, New York
(2006); and Weatherspoon Art Museum, University of North Carolina, Greensboro
(2014). Rubins’ large-scale outdoor sculptures are on permanent display at
leading institutions throughout the world, including MOCA Los Angeles;
Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo; and Université Paris Diderot.
Image:
Nancy Rubins, "Our Friend Fluid Metal, Spiral Ragusso" 2013, Aluminum and
stainless steel, 134 x 228 x 127 inches, All artwork © Nancy Rubins. Courtesy of
the artist and Gagosian Gallery. Photography by Erich Koyama.
