Soft Work, 2012

Sterling Ruby is an American Artist currently working in Los Angeles, California.

He was born in 1972 in an American military base in Bitburg, Germany. Shortly after his
birth his parents moved to Baltimore, Maryland, and then New Freedom, Pennsylvania.
He received his BFA from School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and his MFA from Art
Center in Pasadena. While at Art Center he worked as a TA for Mike Kelley. The main
themes in Rubys work are psychological issues such as paranoia and schizophrenia, as
well as more social issues such as waste, consumption, and globalization. The piece
above, Rubys Soft Work, is a work that focuses heavily on American dominance in
global affairs, as can be seen by the main flag-like structures in the exhibit, as well as the
fabric that they are made out of. Most of Rubys work is made out of harder materials
such as urethane and cardboard, so I think that Soft Work stands out in a really nice way
because of the change of materials. I can definitely see the influence Mike Kelley had on
him, in this piece in particular, because he worked in very similar materials. Soft Work is
very refreshing as a political piece because it manages to be political while still retaining
a sense of peacefulness. Ruby does not resort to scare tactics and raw shock to get his
message across, but instead lets the material speak for itself. The juxtapositions of such
ideas like war and peace and pain and discomfort all wrapped up in one piece of art
is really stunning and quite amazing.