VIENNA.- Sterling Ruby (b. 1972) is one of the most enigmatic, controversial and unfailingly unpredictable figures in the art world. The Los Angeles-based artist works prolifically in a wide range of media, from glazed biomorphic ceramics and poured urethane sculptures to large-scale spray-painted canvases, nail polish drawings, collages and videos.

His first European survey focuses on works in which military imperialism and rhetoric are analysed and investigated, representing a contrasting parallel with the military history of Prince Eugene of Savoy and his politics. Ruby will present a series of new tapestries designed specifically for this exhibition, which will be hung like Baroque tapestries in the grand rooms of the Winterpalais, thereby constructing a visual and conceptual oxymoron against the backdrop of the celebration of warfare throughout the building.

The Los Angeles-based artist Sterling Ruby is undoubtedly one of the most influential and innovative artists of the generation born in the 1970s and is still one of the most enigmatic, controversial and unfailingly unpredictable figures in the art world. He works prolifically in a wide range of media, from glazed biomorphic ceramics and poured urethane sculptures to large-scale spray-painted canvases, nail polish drawings, collages and videos. Through his varied practice he conducts an assault on traditional artistic materials and social structures, referencing subjects that include marginalized societies, maximum-security prisons, modernist architecture, artefacts and antiquities, graffiti, bodybuilders, the mechanisms of warfare, cults and urban gangs. His work engages with issues related to autobiography, art history, and the violence and pressures within society. Throughout he vacillates between the fluid and the static, the minimalist and the expressionist, the pristine and tarnished.

Within this context the exhibition in the richly decorated baroque rooms of the former residence of Prince Eugene of Savoy, the Winterpalais, is particularly extraordinary and unique due to the contrast and comparison between the two historical periods and indeed between the two aesthetics. The exhibition represents a survey of the artist’s work throughout his career and focuses in particular on those works in which military imperialism and rhetoric are analyzed and investigated in various media and presentations – as such, representing a further contrasting parallel with the military history of Prince Eugene and his politics. Within this context Ruby will present a series of new tapestries designed specifically for this exhibition, which will be hung like Renaissance or baroque tapestries in the grand rooms of the palace, thereby constructing a deliberately tragic and ironic juxtaposition as well as visual and conceptual oxymoron against the backdrop of the celebration of warfare throughout the building.

Sterling Ruby was born on an American Air Force base in Bitburg, Germany in 1972. He lives and works in Los Angeles. Public collections include Museum of Modern Art, New York; Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York; Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; Museum of Contemporary Art, North Miami; Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Los Angeles County Museum of Art; San Francisco Museum of Modern Art; Montreal Museum of Fine Arts; Tate, London; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and Moderna Museet, Stockholm. Solo exhibitions include CHRON, The Drawing Center, New York (2008); SUPERMAX 2008, Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles (2008); Grid Ripper, Galleria d’Arte Moderna e Contemporanea, Bergamo (2008-09); SOFT WORK, Centre D’Art Contemporain, Geneva (2012, traveled to FRAC Champagne-Ardenne, Reims; Bonniers Konsthall, Stockholm; and Museo d’Arte Contemporanea, Rome); CHRON II, Fondazione MEMMO, Rome (2013, traveled to Kunsthalle Mainz); DROPPA BLOCKA, Museum Dhondt-Dhaenens, Ghent (2013); and Sterling Ruby, Baltimore Museum of Art (2014). In 2014, Ruby exhibited at the Taipei Biennial, the Gwangju Biennial, and the Whitney Biennial. Upcoming exhibitions include the biennial MADE IN L.A. 2016 at the Hammer Museum, Los Angeles, and this solo exhibition in Vienna, Austria.