Installation Shots From: Gaiety Is the Most Outstanding Feature of the Soviet Union
Installation Shots From: Gaiety Is the Most Outstanding Feature of the Soviet Union
Installation Shots From: Gaiety Is the Most Outstanding Feature of the Soviet Union
Installation Shots From: Gaiety Is the Most Outstanding Feature of the Soviet Union
Installation Shots From: Gaiety Is the Most Outstanding Feature of the Soviet Union

Ruby Sky Stiler

SELECTED WORKS BY Ruby Sky Stiler

Ruby Sky Stiler
Nude From Parts (Fig.1)

2010

Foam, acrylic resin, thermal adhesive

169 x 79 x 33 cm

Ruby Sky Stiler
Nude From Parts (Fig.2)

2010

Foam, acrylic resin, thermal adhesive

167 x 66 x 33 cm

Ruby Sky Stiler
Nude From Parts (Fig.3)

2010

Foam, acrylic resin, thermal adhesive

170 x 60 x 23 cm

ARTICLES

Ruby Sky Stiler
Art Info: Modern Painters, Dec 2010, by Scott Indrisek

I’m interested in shifting between these states ofhigh and low,” says Ruby Sky Stiler, a Brooklyn based artist who makes large fabrications, in foam core or concrete, that mimic (and mangle) the forms of Classical sculpture. Epic works like the sculptural urns An Old Friend from the Future, 2008, and An Earlier Vessel, 2009, “participate in the language of high art and kitsch,” explains Stiler, who earned her MFA from Yale in 2006. Her Partial Nude, in Light, 2010, which was installed this fall at Socrates Sculpture Park, in Queens, New York, displays many of her signature tropes: what the artist describes as
“the assuring patina of antiquity,” adopted to create “a mood of authority,” and the marriage of disjointed shards:
“I’m drawn to the gesture of creating a whole, complete form without having all the correct parts on hand.” The piece was her first foray into working with concrete, which she found to share with her more usual medium, foam core, a “utilitarian-chic”quality, in that “both can simulate more expensive materials, like marble or ceramic.”
The imagery on her sculptural objects is often based on archival reference materials adapted using a sort of poetic license. “I’m trying to summon a vibe of specificity rather than being actually specific,” she says.
Lest she be typecast as an adulterator of antiquities, it’s important to note that Stiler’s art consists in more than reconfiguring ancient forms.
Old and Cool/New and Boring, 2007—which looks a bit like an alien football that’s crash-landed in a gallery—demonstrates her firm grasp on materials and intuition for texture. “This piece is funny, because its surface is so tough and aggressive,” the artist explains, “but it’s otherwise a very vulnerable form: overweight, no autonomy.”
For her 2009 solo show at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery, in New York, Stiler imported a wooden floor—a stand-alone piece, Attic—to skew the way visitors interpreted the works on display. “I wanted to create a backdrop that encouraged the works to drift freely between high art and a neglected object relegated to the attic,” she says.
The artist has also been experimenting with two-dimensional forms, including a series of collages that mingle text and image in geometric arrays.
Stiler supplements her practice by teaching in NYU’s art department and assisting the multimedia artist Olaf Breuning (see page 34). “If you have to work for the Man,” she says, “it might as well be a really funny Swiss man.”
In 2011 she will present new work at Nicelle Beauchene Gallery and in the project room of Derek Eller Gallery, also in New York, as well as an installation at the unconventional artist-run space the Suburban, in Oak Park, Illinois.

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Source: artinfo.com

Ruby Sky Stiler:500 Words
Art Forum, September 2010, by Lauren O'Neill Butler

I’ve been developing the work in this show for the past year. Kristan Kennedy, a curator at the Portland Institute for Contemporary Art, encountered two of the initial sculptures in my studio, and the undertaking moved forward from there, with a steady dialogue between us and the site in mind. The project consists of three “figurative” works, each slightly larger than life, and a group of twenty-two collages. I’ve created a corresponding artist’s book that includes the collages and shares the title of my installation: “Inherited and Borrowed Types.” Though the pieces themselves are independent, I’m excited to see how the formal, academic aspects of Washington High School create a different context to support them, and I have worked with the space to tease a distinct mood from the classroom/gallery.
The reference to classical iconography popped up in my work a few years ago. I was in Naples for a brief visit with friends, and we visited Pompeii, the formerly ash-buried Roman town–cum–tourist attraction. A controversy involving the colors of the frescoes captured our attention during our time there. Apparently “Pompeii Red,” which is synonymous with our collective sense of this historical time and place––and a standard paint-chip color––may have been an archaeological mistake. Reports stated that the original color could have been oxidized through the heat of the fire and mutated to appear red. Meanwhile, the entire site has been restored with this color in mind, which is nuts. I love this subject, which exists primarily through the lens of contemporary historians and is therefore a constantly evolving and engaging fiction. The sculptures in this show play with authenticity and with how that quality is perceived, creates value, and can prompt an atmosphere of authority surrounding the object.
My basic process for this work is to jam together disparate parts to make a whole. I think of this as a hopeful, loving gesture: finding solutions (or a suitable repair) that will bring the figure to life out of crumbling, incomplete appendages. The sculptures are made to be viewed in the round: From one side, a classical figure is seen, while the opposite section gives off an abstract modernist vibe. The resulting sensation is that these works are referencing both ancient art history and sculpture of the twentieth century. My incorporation of shifting perspectives, varied art-historical references, gender combinations, and juxtapositions in scale encourages a sense of striving to make something work, even when one doesn’t have all the appropriate resources at one’s disposal. This activity feels like a metaphor for daily life.
The shifting line between common kitsch and singular originality is an element that interests me. On first glance, these ancient-seeming figures appear to be chiseled from marble. Looking closer, it’s clear that they are constructed from contemporary art supplies and conflate iconography that spans different centuries and societies. On the one hand, elements of these works copy from recognized ideals of art history, and in this sense, they are tacky imitations. On the other hand, however, I aim to make the sculptures’ presence feel elegant, convincing, and originally expressive.

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Source: artforum.com