Boss Women of the Art World: Nancy Rubins

MADE IN BED’s Head of Reviews, Erica Rompani, explains the premise: “on and off for a couple of years now I have been thinking about the fact that I should get a T-shirt printed that reads: ‘If you can name 10 female artists off the top of your head I will give (at this point blow) you a kiss’.”

This series is meant as praise to some of the women who laid the foundations for or who currently shaking things up in the art world.

© Veda Lane

In this brief presentation I would like to introduce you to an artist who might not necessarily be on the list of female artists you immediately think about: her name is Nancy Rubins. I hope you know her work already but if you don’t I am hoping to tickle your appetite with this introduction. 

I remember seeing Nancy’s work for the first time in Los Angeles. I was completely blown away by the intricate conglomerate of metal parts which composed Chas' Stainless Steel, Mark Thompson's Airplane Parts, About 1,000 Pounds of Stainless Steel Wire, and Gagosian's Beverly Hills Space at MOCA. I stood for a few minutes analysing the sculpture then started walking around it. My mind was enchanted by each element that composed the sculpture, by the weight but the seeming lightness of it. As you can probably guess from the title of the work, the sculpture is created by using airplane pieces and stainless steel wire. But one of the traits which is most remarkable is how the monumental composition (762 x 1645.9 x 1005.8 cm) is balanced on a tiny pedestal. 

Setting aside my personal impressions for a moment, let me give you some facts about her. Rubins was born in 1952 in Naples, Texas. She received a BFA in 1974 from the Maryland Institute College of Art, and an MFA in 1976 from the University of California. The artist is especially known for balancing industrial or common day objects – such as plane parts, boats, metal animals and children’s playground toys – in monumental sculptures that shed light on the alternative aesthetic values these objects hide. The results are compositions which recall the structure of a molecule, where the single items can be considered as the atoms and the cables as the chemical bonds. The only difference is that Nancy’s sculptures utilise a structural property known as “tensegrity”. Simplifying, a net in constant tension contains isolated elements in compression, AKA not all pieces are tied together.

An occasion in which Londoners had the chance to familiarise themselves with one Rubin’s sculptures was the 8th edition of Sculptures in the city, which took place in 2018. In that occasion Crocodylius Philodendrus was installed in 1 Undershaft Street. In this sculpture an array of silver animals, among which crocodiles and deer, were balanced on top of an upside-down tortoise. 

I guess one of the aspects of Rubins’ work that has always intrigued me most is her ability of taking  quotidian objects that have lost their capability to function and infusing them with new life. The way in which she manages attract the focus on the formal aspects of some of these discarded objects almost reminds me of some of Kurt Schwitters’s Merzbild. In a similar, but two dimensional manner, the Dada artist was also capable of utilising scraps of newspapers or wood bits to create beautiful and unified collages. One of my favourite works by Nancy Rubins and one that might best exemplify her role as infuser of new life is Our Friend Fluid Metal, Chunkus Majoris (2013). In that particular sculpture Rubins used old children’s rides, commonly found on playgrounds or outside of supermarkets, to create a dense but sinuous sculpture that reaches towards the sky.  

In conclusion, I hope this brief presentation sparked at least enough interest to Google this phenomenal woman’s work and that if I ever come around wearing the T-shirt you will cite Nancy Rubins among the female artists. 

Erica Rompani,

Head of Reviews, MADE IN BED