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KIM RUGG

Kim Rugg's work involves reducing and dismantling an object to its most elemental parts and then reconstructing it to reveal new meanings, to obliterate original ones, to change or destroy its function and to prompt the viewer to consider the familiar from an entirely new perspective. Often this method of deconstruction and reconstruction becomes politically charged.
Rugg, for example, uses the newspaper’s front page as raw material and literally dissolves its integrity. With meticulous precision, she cuts out each printed letter and assigns it a new place. Instead of organising the tools of verbal communication according to meaning, Rugg organises them alphabetically or according to an unknown code – she substitutes one sort of order for another. In the articles, capitals precede lower case letters, letters precede numbers, and numbers are followed by punctuation marks and finally by blank spaces. Photographs also are sliced and diced - cutting images and advertisement into small squares and rearranging them, turning clear representations into pixelated blurs. Her newspaper works - through her removal of the message - allow the viewer to consider the vehicle for the message, to contemplate the unquestioned ephemera of the day to day.
Rugg exposes the hidden meaning within each structural component and shows how the information we process is "informed" before we even begin to think. By demonstrating the ease at which information can be rearranged and altered, Rugg questions what is commonly assumed to be neutral documentation.
Somewhat paradoxically, Rugg's stamp and envelope pieces - whilst visually being very different - retain their original function; they are sent through the mail unperturbed. Here she attempts to see just how far she can deconstruct them and still make them work as stamps by posting the resulting piece. A majority of envelopes return due to the fact that the value of the stamp is held in its very materials, the pigments, rather than the image these inks form. Consequently, these works are far more subversive as, to a degree, they actively undermine established, regulated systems. Rugg's work inspires the viewer to not only reconsider, but perhaps to even challenge, what is so casually understood as the accepted and unchangeable.

Born 1963, Montreal, Canada
Lives and works in London

EDUCATION

Royal College of Art, MA Sculpture, London, 2004
City and Guilds of London Art School, BA Hons Painting, 2002

EXHIBITIONS

2009 ioiiiSolo exhibition, NETTIE HORN, London, UK / March-April

2008 ccccScope Art Fair with NETTIE HORN, London / October
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiThe Future can wait, The Old Truman Brewery, London / October
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiText/ural, OKOK Gallery, Seattle, USA / July-September
iiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiBillboard Text Art, Tina B, Prague
rrrrrrrrr Don't mention the war, PPOW Gallery, New York, USA, March-April

2007 ccccPulse Miami, Mark Moore Gallery, Miami, USA, December
cccccccccThe Islanders, NETTIE HORN, London, October
cccccccccDon’t mention the war, Mark Moore Gallery, Santa Monica, USA – Solo Show
cccccccccClaydon Heeley Jones Mason, The Glass Mill, short-listed for installation, Battersea, London, UK
cccccccccArt Chicago -Showing with Winkleman Gallery, New York
cccccccccPulse New York, Mark Moore Gallery, New York, NY, USA

2006 ccccArt Basel Miami Beach- With Mark Moore
cccccccccYear 06 Art Fair, Plus Ultra Gallery, NY, USA
cccccccccPlus Ultra London- with Winkleman Gallery NY
cccccccccUltrasonic International- Mark Moore Gallery
cccccccccKiss- The Arts Club

2005 ccccArt News Raid Project Los Angeles
cccccccccMixed Up Media- Spectrum Gallery

2004 ccccArt News- Three Colts gallery
cccccccccThe Davis Langton Award Art – Source
cccccccccArtist of Fame and Promise- Spectrum Gallery September
cccccccccEveryday shockers- A gallery Escape Art-Bar

2003 ccccWho’s Howie- RCA
cccccccccArt of the Impossible, short-listed for the Centre Prize, The Great Eastern Hotel, London, UK
cccccccccEveryday Shockers, A Gallery at Escape Art-Bar, London, UK

AWARDS

2004 VDSvRoyal College of Art Society – Thames and Hudson Prize, Winner
dvdvvSDV Art-Source-Davis Langton Award, Winner
2003 cccccCentre Prize, Shortlisted

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Ollman, Leah. “Her altered states of being”, Los Angeles Times, October 19, 2007, p.E24.

Contemporary issue 70

Bon magazine

The Newpaper

Ayers, Robert. “Armory Week: A Year Later, A Fair Better”, ArtInfo, February 25, 2007

Gray, Emma. “L.A. Confidential”, ArtNet, August 21 2006

Ollman, Leah. “International art with youthful edge,” Los Angeles Times, July 28, 2006, p. E 23.

COLLECTIONS
The Edinburgh House collection
Kelly and Jay Sugarman (US)
Young Kim
Private Collections worldwide