Provenance
Pace Gallery, New York
Catalogue Essay
‘I like to think about art as being similar to poetry: it can’t be proven. It just exists and there’s an aura about it that people get or don’t get.’ Sterling Ruby

Sterling Ruby’s interdisciplinary works are visually charged indicators and allegories for the burdens that afflict contemporary existence, serving as a visual expression of his interest in psychology, industry, urban culture, and American society. The artist’s oeuvre channels the conflicts prevalent throughout contemporary society, engaging in irrationality and dysfunctional psychology, but more specifically focusing on the gap between the individual impulse and restrictions that abound due to mechanisms of social control. His multifaceted practice exploits limitations of form, scale and materials: a process which allows for this manipulation of abject or marginalised subject matter.

Alabaster SR10-9 perfectly communicates the artist’s concern with such dichotomies: a patent rejection of the rigidity of minimal art, it is a quintessential example of Ruby’s attempt to breach the confines of societal structure. His critique of Minimalism and its repressive and rigid lines is evident in the present lot, where his commonly used‘dripping effect’ of acrylic paint acts as a strain disparately drenching the blank canvas – one which arguably reflects the strain that plague many in a society where repression, conformity and aggression are the norm. Applied with expressionistic fervour, the piece visually articulates Sterling Ruby’s struggle with the minimalist aim to represent objects with no personification, and simultaneously reveals a tension between decoration and defacement: as the artist himself states, 'Everything I do holds a kind of gesture in it. For me, it’s this kind of dramatic gesture. A truncated gesture. It’s like an expression that was at one point very fervent and then it just gets kind of stopped.' (Sterling Ruby, in an interview with Hans-Maarten in Utopia Parkway, 10 December 2009.)

24

Sterling Ruby

Alabaster SR10-7

2010
acrylic in artist's frame
174.6 x 175.3 cm. (68 3/4 x 69 in.)

Estimate
£60,000 - 80,000

Sold for £110,500

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Contemporary Art Evening Sale

London 27 June 2013 7pm

1
Rob Pruitt
Chinese Buffet
Estimate £30,000 - 50,000 ‡
Sold for £104,500
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2
Kelley Walker
Untitled
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000 †
Sold for £230,500
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3
Tauba Auerbach
Untitled (Fold) XV
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ‡
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4
Ugo Rondinone
No. 209 DREISSIGSTERJUNIZWEITAUSENDUNDNULL
Estimate £70,000 - 90,000 ‡
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5
Ugo Rondinone
If There were Anywhere but Desert. Friday
Estimate £350,000 - 500,000 ‡
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6
Cindy Sherman
Untitled #426
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000
Sold for £242,500
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7
Rudolf Stingel
Untitled (Bolego)
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000 ‡♠
Sold for £782,500
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8
Cindy Sherman
Untitled Film Still #36
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ‡
Sold for £302,500
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9
Glenn Brown
Oscillate Wildly (after ‘Autumnal Cannibalism’ 1936 by Salvador Dalí)
Estimate £2,500,000 - 3,500,000 ‡♠
Sold for £2,882,500
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10
Andy Warhol
Pontiac
Estimate £1,500,000 - 2,500,000 ‡
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11
Anish Kapoor
Untitled
Estimate £1,000,000 - 1,500,000 ‡♠
Sold for £1,142,500
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12
Andy Warhol
Diamond Dust Shoes
Estimate £900,000 - 1,200,000 ‡
Sold for £1,142,500
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13
Andy Warhol
Skull
Estimate £600,000 - 800,000 ‡
Sold for £698,500
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14
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Three Pontificators
Estimate £2,500,000 - 4,500,000 ‡
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15
Mark Grotjahn
Untitled (Three-Tiered Perspective)
Estimate £140,000 - 180,000 ‡
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16
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Untitled
Estimate £250,000 - 350,000
Sold for £242,500
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17
Anish Kapoor
Turning the World Upside Down II
Estimate £120,000 - 180,000 ♠
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18
Antony Gormley
SICK
Estimate £150,000 - 200,000 ♠
Sold for £194,500
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19
This lot is no longer available.
20
Andy Warhol
Electric Chairs
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000
Sold for £122,500
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21
George Condo
Smiling Smoker
Estimate £100,000 - 150,000
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22
Marcel Broodthaers
Abbildung
Estimate £200,000 - 300,000 ♠
Sold for £218,500
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23
Oscar Murillo
Untitled
Estimate £20,000 - 30,000 ♠†
Sold for £146,500
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24
Sterling Ruby
Alabaster SR10-7
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000
Sold for £110,500
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25
Jacob Kassay
Untitled
Estimate £70,000 - 90,000 ‡
Sold for £104,500
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26
Rashid Johnson
Cosmic Slop
Estimate £60,000 - 80,000 ‡
Sold for £86,500
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27
Marc Quinn
Separation of Body and Soul (Ultramarine)
Estimate £80,000 - 120,000 ‡♠
Sold for £104,500
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Contemporary Art Evening Sale

London 27 June 2013 7pm

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Provenance

Catalogue Essay

24

Sterling Ruby

Alabaster SR10-7

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

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