Ruth Sacks

Listings(s)

Double-sided Accumulated, a solo exhibition by Ruth Sacks, Italy

Ruth Sacks at galleria e x t r a s p a z i o

This exhibition starts with the idea of accumulation. Taking isolated incidents and collecting fragments from across different time periods, it focuses on creating new hybrid forms and portable monuments.?Sacks is careful about adding to the weight of already existing material things.

Seemingly disparate objects, images and words have been pinpointed and re-ordered to form new combinations. Sacks has chosen specific elements that reference moments in the history of art and architecture to examine their shifting roles and interpretations within contemporary times.

?Objects like postcards, coins, bells and luggage are represented in other works with the intention of suggesting alternative interpretations to their initial function.?Words take the place of architectural features.

The artist's book False Friends will be launched in January at the Kunstverein, Amsterdam

14 January 2010 - 27 February 2010

'Alptraum'

Ed Young, Ian Grose, Wim Botha, Ruth Sacks, Linda Stupart, Zander Blom and Various Artists at Deutscher Kunstlerbund

Like George Orwell with his 'Room 101' in his predictive tale 1984, we all have our own version of what constitutes a nightmare, and for this reason, the project has been opened to a large number of artists whose many and varied personal nightmare versions, or visions, act to reflect this hugely variable human state of fears and fobias, pain and panic. 'Alptraum', the German for 'nightmare', is an artist-led project. It is a model which utilizes global communication between localized artist hubs and clusters to form an international grouping with the intent of opening a dialogue about this subject across borders and cultures in order to delve into the stuff and mind-murk that is collectively shared or completely random and unrelated, or individual and specific within the syndrome of 'The Nightmare'. Each artist draws on their own personal experience in order to visualize those anxieties, which take them beyond everyday dreams.

Working within the remit of the ‘artist-curated project’, all of the works in 'Alptraum' have been restricted in size and material in order to facilitate the low-cost postal transportation of the show from country to country. With each exhibition site taking responsibility to pass the show on to the next host, the number of works and artists may change or grow, and the approach to interpreting and hanging the show vary from space to space as the body of works meanders on from country to country. Having started in Washington DC and transferred to London, the exhibition is currently showing in Berlin. It will travel to Los Angeles next, followed by its arrival at blank projects in Cape Town. The Berlin iteration extends the exhibition to include the work of 19 South African artists, such as Sanell Aggenbach, Zander Blom, Ian Grose, Ruth Sacks, Linda Stupart, Wim Botha and Ed Young.

11 March 2011 - 15 April 2011

'The Global Contemporary: Art Worlds After 1989'

Ruth Sacks, Pieter Hugo, Zander Blom, Meschac Gaba and Moshekwa Langa at ZKM - Center for Art and Media Karlsruhe

Globalization as a phase of geopolitical vicissitude of the world signifies a change in art and its circumstances of production and the possibilities of its distribution and perception. At the same time, artists and most of all the institutions of art – large-scale exhibitions, museums, the market – are confronted with the question of how far art can be and has to be thought of as global – and how this affects their own modes of production. With the aid of documentary materials and artistic standpoints, the exhibition 'The Global Contemporary' will demonstrate how globalization, with its dominant market mechanisms on the one hand, and its utopias of connectivity and liberalness on the other, influences the different spheres of art production and reception.

17 September 2011 - 05 February 2012