Nancy Rubins’ exuberant exhibition at Gagosian Britannia Street comes as a great relief in the current epoch of self-righteous #MeToo feminism. Essentially it consists of four very large sculptures, accompanied by two equally large wall drawings, The drawings – so-called – are non-figurative, and need not detain one for long.
They are essentially playful works, and, as such, I found that they raised my spirits – ELS
The sculptures consist of readymade metallic forms representing life-size animals: hogs, turtles, deer – you name it. These are clustered on steel armatures and held in place by steel cables; The total effect is somehow more vegetable than animal. One sculpture is called Agrifolia Major. Another is Crocodylitus Philodendrus.
![Nancy Rubins](http://artlyst.com//wp-content/uploads/2018/02/Screen-Shot-2018-02-19-at-20.45.07-600x398.jpg)
In spite of the fact that so much of what is used apparently comes to the sculptor readymade, and also in spite of the fact the works are pretty much monochrome – the colours of metal (cast iron, brass, bronze, aluminium, stainless steel – no paint) – the effect is joyfully spontaneous. The complex forms offered to the eyes seem to shift as one walks around the sculptures, or as one stands in a different position in relation to them. Though none of the component parts actually move, what they seem to offer is a reflection of a world that is in a continual state of flux.
Which, I have to say, is all too often a metaphor for my own relationship to the external world, though not, alas to an art world that seems increasingly preoccupied with a perceived duty to preach.
Rubins’ work certainly does have a relationship to the contemporary cult of appropriation, though not in its most radical and drastic form. The readymade animals are re-purposed, not left alone to make their point, like that all too celebrated not-by-Duchamp/not-by-Elsa-von-Frytag-Loringhoven Urinal that keeps on being trotted out in various exhibitions devoted to the history of the 20th-century avant-garde.
Essentially, Rubins uses these components because they are ‘there’, and they amuse her, not to make a moral and philosophical point. They are essentially playful works, and, as such, I found that they raised my spirits when I looked at them.
And, yes, they did what Serge Diaghilev demanded of Jean Cocteau when Cocteau badgered him for instructions about how to be truly avant-garde. “Jean,” Diaghilev said, “surprise me!” Now I think about it; I can imagine some of Diaghilev’s great dancers twirling delightedly round one of these sculptures. Any one of them would make a great centrepiece for an outrageously Modernist ballet. Music perhaps by Saint-Saens: The Carnival of the Animals. Something old married to something new.
Words/Top Photo Edward Lucie-Smith © Artlyst 2018
NANCY RUBINS DIVERSIFOLIA FEBRUARY 7 – APRIL 14, 2018 6-24 Gagosian Britannia Street London WC1X 9JD