Sterling Ruby reinvents Calvin Klein Headquarters

The Light Box at 505 Fifth Avenue is decorated with violet and blue colors created by artist James Turrell. And now in Calvin Klein headquarters at 205 West 39th Street, Sterling Ruby got the chance to transform the building.

According to The New York Times, under the patronage of the brand's chief creative director, Raf Simons, Ruby has converted the towering Art Deco building in his kaleidoscopic vision. Simmons gave Ruby the freedom to create work that was essentially his own and since Calvin Klein is an American brand so his theme is America.

The first three floors are painted in black, over the ground-floor space where a runway show was staged last month hangs a group of pompoms, chrome bucket and Calvin Klein briefs. Once minimalist white cube, the top-floor showdown is draped in hand-painted wallpaper and fabrics with Ruby's signature mix of bleach stains and red-and-blue splotches.

Standing in front of Ruby's tapestry, Flag (4791) is the reinterpretation of Calvin Klein's iconic ads; the brand's current campaign features underwear-clad models. According to Calvin Klein, Ruby wanted to make a free-floating collage and for the most part of the designs are all the elements that Ruby worked with all the mobile installations he has made.

Ruby is a serious artist but doesn't seem to take himself too seriously; he's rather honestly operating in the reality of art and commerce and relishing both the fashion and art worlds. Ruby also uses multiple mediums from the connotations of feminine craft in ceramics and textiles to the hypermasculine sculptures and vast paintings and then there are the crosses between the two.

Ruby refuses to play by the rules of the art establishment. But he enjoys the in-betweens and revels in the opposites and extremes.

Sterling Ruby was born on an American military base in Bitburg, Germany. Ruby received a Bachelor of Fine Arts from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Illinois, and Master of Fine Arts Art Center College of Design in Pasadena, California.

Ruby's sources and inspirations are aberrant psychologies, graffiti, hip-hop culture, violence, craft, masculinity and civic monuments.

TagsCalvin Klein, Light Box at 505 fifth Avenue, James Turrell, Clavin Klein Headquarters at 205 West 39th Street, Raf Simons Ruby, Art Deco Building, Underwear Fashion Show