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Selections from the Permanent Collection: Sterling Ruby "Soft Works" @ The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in Los Angeles

Shown in the United States for the first time, Ruby’s SOFT WORK is a large-scale installation of stuffed fabric sculptures in unsettling biomorphic forms. Appendaged cushions and gaping, fang-filled mouths are manically arranged as sausage link–like drips from the ceiling, coiled heaps across the floor, and slumping, abject forms throughout the space. Using textiles that evoke the colors and motifs of the American flag, the sprawling installation offers up that iconic symbol of national pride as an intensely visceral experience—a political scene filled with performative “bodies” that seem to manifest both theater and playground simultaneously. On view until June 12, 2017 at The Geffen Contemporary at MOCA in Los Angeles. photographs by Oliver Kupper