Conversing with the Dead

[Shana A]

 Conversing with the Dead
Spring 2010
Xavier Hufkens, Brussels

http://www.nyartsmagazine.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=575450:conversing-with-the-dead-&catid=380:reviewed

    For his first solo exhibition Sterling Ruby & Robert Mapplethorpe at Xavier Hufkens, Sterling Ruby engages with the photography of Robert Mapplethorpe. The artist visited the Robert Mapplethorpe Foundation in New York to personally select the photographs. Ruby presents a new body of works, including a suite of collages, ceramics, and poured urethane sculptures. In this installation, Ruby uses the Mapplethorpe photographs as another element in his assemblage.

snip

    Ruby's work strives toward a transgression of fixed identities. His transcompositional collages incorporate images of pre-operative and post-operative transsexuals and splatterings of nail varnish on a mirrored background.