Man, Sterling Ruby has out Matthew Day Jackson, Matthew Day
Jackson. This is what Matthew Day Jackson’s show at Hauser & Wirth should
have been. Or at least been more like. Ruby’s show is a giant, bombastic,
confused, scattered, absurd exhibition and possibly the best approach ever to
being shown in one of Chelsea’s megamall galleries. I mean, how did Matthew Day
Jackson not have giant car-engine parts covered in blood? How did that get by
him? I find it hard not to like Ruby’s huge collage pieces of bleach-splattered
cloth with the occasional florescent spandex worked in, sculptures that look
like giant ashtrays from a grade school art class. Ruby even obnoxiously hawks
the cardboard splayed with paint used to protect his studio floors. Hell, I
think he should be showing nothing but giant pieces that would bankrupt any aspiring
artist in the giant Hauser & Wirth. He even made a Calder out of aluminum
bats. I love / hated the show in exactly the way I imagine it was intended. The
work feels genuinely dislikeable in its bombast and over-scaled sloppiness in a
way that is challenging the viewer to feel disgruntled and hate it. Even trying
to be punk while selling for absorbent costs at a top-of-the-food-chain Chelsea
gallery, seems like he is trying to push buttons. If this is the next
generation of what is cool, then I am down, but again, I remember when Matthew
Day Jackson was the hot artist on the rise, and now after a prolonged absence
from Chelsea and getting killed in his first show back at Hauser & Wirth,
it is hard not to worry that his artistic legacy is very much in jeopardy. So I
guess we’ll see how high and for how long Sterling Ruby can fly.
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