SAN ANTONIO, TX.- Today Ruby City announced the acquisition of seven recent works by acclaimed international artists Isaac Julien, Tala Madani, Wangechi Mutu, Do Ho Suh and Ana Fernandez, which join the Linda Pace Foundation collection. Guided by its mission to foster creative expression and understanding through contemporary art, acquisitions echo the themes and character of Pace’s own collecting, favoring works that engage the social, political and environmental issues, which we as a society face. The Linda Pace Foundation collection currently comprises more than 800 works of art, including paintings, sculptures, works on paper, photographs and video installations, with many pieces acquired in the year in which they were created. Since 2007 more than 200 works have been loaned to institutions around the globe.

Together, these artworks continue the foundation’s longstanding commitment to experimental and new media works, as well as to works, which explore non-traditional subject matter. Do Ho Suh (b. 1962) is best known for his “fabric architecture” sculptures, which consider questions of memory, migration and home. His 2016 large-scale sculpture Hub, 3rd Floor, Union Wharf, 23 Wenlock Road, London N1 7ST, UK speaks to a unified global identity regardless of geographic location. Suh’s immersive installations are informed by his personal experiences, including his immigration to the United States from South Korea and the various domestic spaces, which he has inhabited throughout this life. With their vibrant use of color, these reconfigured homes appear, at first glance whimsical, but also strike a somber tone, as investigations into our collective personal memories and the elusive nature of “home.”

Isaac Julien (b. 1960), an award-winning artist and filmmaker, is the most represented artist in the collection with over fifty works spanning three decades. Stones Against Diamonds, a 2015 video installation, takes as its point of departure a letter sent by the Brazilian architect, curator and designer Lina Bo Bardi, in which she states her preference for the organic beauty of uncut and semi-precious stones to polished diamonds. This work is joined by Masquerade No. 3 (Looking for Langston Vintage Series) and Film-Noir Angels (Looking For Langston Vintage Series), both dated 1989/2016. These photographs are taken from Julien’s seminal 1989 film Looking for Langston, a celebration of black, gay identity during the Harlem Renaissance.

Tehran-born Tala Madani’s (b. 1981) cartoonish paintings and animations of an upended patriarchy have garnered her critical acclaim worldwide, including participation in the 2017 Whitney Biennial. Her 2017 painting Young Medusa, a play on the classic Greek myth and the historic portrayal of women, depicts a girl from behind, with thick strands of snake-like hair on her head and in clumps in her hands. Ana Fernandez’s (b. 1981) large-scale painting Los Valles, depicting an evening scene of people congregating at a fruteria, examines the cultural, psychological and spiritual nuances found in seemingly ordinary urban landscapes, particularly those found in Latino and Hispanic communities. Los Valles will be included in Right Here, Right Now: San Antonio, an exhibition at the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston (CAMH), Houston, TX on view April 27- August 5, 2018.

Lastly, Wangechi Mutu (b. 1972) uses a variety of media to explore gender constructs and misrepresentations of women in contemporary culture. Her 2017 bronze and wood sculpture This second Dreamer challenges the appropriation of African masks and black identity through an idealized self-portrait, mimicking the style of Constantin Brancusi’s iconic 1910 sculpture Sleeping Muse.