Skip to main content
  1. Art
  2. The Collection

Untitled

Ernestine Ruben

Artwork Details

Untitled
2009
Ernestine Ruben
inkjet prints on fabric
154 ½ in x 44 in (392.43 cm x 111.76 cm);154 ½ in x 44 in (392.43 cm x 111.76 cm);154 ½ in x 44 in (392.43 cm x 111.76 cm);78 in x 44 in (198.12 cm x 111.76 cm);64 in x 44 in (162.56 cm x 111.76 cm);35 in x 44 in (88.9 cm x 111.76 cm);142 ½ in x 44 in (361.95 cm x 111.76 cm);113 in x 44 in (287.02 cm x 111.76 cm)
Museum commission made possible with support of the artist
2009/1.469.1-7

Tags

Description

Ernestine Ruben's approach to photography has always been restlessly experimental, and her longstanding effort to "free the photograph from the wall" has consistently led her to unconventional photographic processes, materials, and forms. In this installation, designed especially for this space, the University of Michigan alumna (B.A. History of Art, 1953) has produced a complex, layered work in which multiple skins reveal themselves as the viewer moves through the space they create. Known for her photographic investigations into the shape of the human body, Ruben's work seen here engages with the natural world in its most elemental forms, from the firlmly corporeal - earth, water, flora - to the transient and immaterial - mist, fire, even light itself.

Printing on semi-transparent fabric coupled with the artist's decision to severely crop her images produces an effect of semi-abstraction. Consequently, it can take a moment to realize that we are seeing a network of branches and leaves or the patterns of light reflected on the surface of water. In slowing the process by which we apprehend these enigmatic fragments, Ruben encourages us to do the same as we move through the natural world. 

Subject Matter:

These seven banners were created for the new Frankel wing of the museum and installed in the stairway between the second and third floors. Ruben's experimental approach to photography, with printing on semi-transparent fabric and sharp cropping of the images, creates a complex layered work in which multiple views reveal themselves as the viewer moves down the stairs. Though the subject of these scenes is naturalistic - rocks, water, fire, vegetation- there is an abstract quality to these forms.

Physical Description:

This work consists of seven photographic prints on semi-transparent fabric, gradually increasing in length, that hang from the sloping ceiling of a stairway in the Frankel Wing. Each panel of fabric has a different image including, craggy rocks, tree branches against the sky, sunlight reflecting on water and marshland, flames of fire and cloud like formations. Four are black and white images and the three others are color prints.

Usage Rights:

If you are interested in using an image for a publication, please visit https://umma.umich.edu/request-image/ for more information and to fill out the online Image Rights and Reproductions Request Form.