Trend Tools

Echoing the virtues of colossal size and ample scale that characterised the sculptured works of the early 1960s, Nancy Rubins manages to capture the current interest in the artists’ exploitation of recycled detritus. Rubins is a Los Angeles artist who has been working with recycled materials since the late 1970s and emerged to acclaim in the 1990s.

Salvaging industrial and consumer goods, Rubins creates sculptures of unique size and intensity. From making a commentary on America’s rampant individual consumerism by using discarded gardening tools, power tools and household items to the state of waste of society as a whole, Rubins’ works are magnificent in their sheer magnitude.

For instance, her “MOMA and Airplane Parts” exhibition in the Projects gallery of the Museum of Modern Art consisted entirely of mashed aeroplane parts, salvaged from the desert near Los Angeles, suspended from the ceiling of the gallery. Despite the work weighing close to 10,000 pounds, it never touches the ground, merely hinting a point of contact at only one location.

Her previous works have been less jarring and jolting – but only slightly. Take for instance the wonderfully tactile “Mattresses and Cakes”, first shown in New York at the Paul Kasmin gallery in 1993 and then at the Venice Biennale of the same year. Suspended above the end of the Venice Arsenale, the work looked strangely appropriate in its huge mass of bound and coiled mattresses embellished with mangled cakes.

If Nancy Rubins had one media of choice, it’s pretty safe to say that it’s junk. Artistically-hoarded, aesthetically-assembled junk, but nonetheless… junk. Another example is her installation “Helter Skelter”, displayed at the New York Kunsthalle in Manhattan, which was entirely made up of a ground-covering of worse-for-wear appliances, from hairdryers to hedge trimmers, televisions to Black & Decker tools. Impressive and inspired, if it’s Trend tools that make this trend – then we’ve all got something to look out for in the works of Nancy Rubins.