Gagosian is pleased to announce |, an exhibition of new paintings by Sterling Ruby from the TURBINE series (2021–), opening at the gallery in Hong Kong on November 14, 2024. The title, |, is an ode to verticality. This exhibition marks not only ten years since the artist’s debut with Gagosian, but also a return to the site of that inaugural presentation.

In a practice that spans painting, sculpture, drawing, collage, video, ceramics, and textiles, Ruby alludes to key artistic tendencies and to the intersection of sociopolitical histories with the narrative of his own life. Through formal juxtaposition, he interweaves the disruption of aesthetic convention with the reexamination of civil structures. In Ruby’s 2014 exhibition VIVIDS, large-scale spray paintings seemed to gaze into the horizon in apparent anticipation of changes to come. Those works’ horizontal orientation stand in stark contrast to the precariously balanced compositions of the new TURBINE paintings on view in Hong Kong.

Ruby recalls the sensation of witnessing such monumental collapse as a child: “When I was young my father worked as an explosives technician. On a number of occasions, I went with him and watched, in real life, the collapse of large structures, the thinness of architecture, chimneys and smokestacks crumble in one sweep, one motion. Transforming solids to particulates. Watching these smokestacks, built on twentieth-century labor and progress, fall, I cannot help but think of societies’ and civilizations’ collapse.”

Opening reception: Thursday, November 14, 6–8pm

Gallery address: 7/F Pedder Building, 12 Pedder Street, Central