Ruby Neri: Taking the Deep Dive is on view at the Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, Davis
January 26 – May 5, 2025
Ruby Neri: Taking the Deep Dive is the first solo museum exhibition of the artist’s work. Neri sculpts brightly colored personal motifs and uninhibited female nudes, playing with familiar forms and monumental scale to challenge our expectations. At a time when women’s rights and bodily autonomy are under fire, Neri brings power and agency to the female body. Her figures are a reflection of her own experiences of womanhood and motherhood, and a mirror for broader issues around gender and sexuality.
Ruby Neri (b. 1970, San Francisco) has been one of the leading figures in the return to ceramics as a contemporary artmaking medium. Recent shows include Funk You Too!, Museum of Arts and Design, New York (2023); The Flames: The Age of Ceramics, Musée d’Art Moderne de Paris (2021–2022); and New Time: Art and Feminisms in the 21st Century, (2021) and Alicia McCarthy and Ruby Neri / MATRIX 270 (2018), both at the Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive (BAMPFA). Her work is in the permanent collections of The Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; Brooklyn Museum, New York; de Young Museum, San Francisco; and Hammer Museum, Los Angeles. She lives and works in Los Angeles.
While Neri is an established voice in contemporary ceramics and the LA art scene, her roots are in the Bay Area. The daughter of sculptor and UC Davis professor Manuel Neri, she draws inspiration from the boundary-pushing work of Northern California artists of the 1960s and ’70s. This exhibition is the first to recognize a career that spans decades and is deeply grounded in California.
The exhibition is curated by Ginny Duncan, curatorial assistant.
About the museum
The Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art at the University of California, Davis, is a contemporary art museum for today, committed to honoring the past and shaping the future while making art accessible and approachable to all. It builds on UC Davis’ legacy of exceptional teaching and practice of the arts to offer engaging experiences, exhibitions and educational programs that reflect and serve the community. One-third of the museum’s 30,000-square-foot space is devoted to instruction, including a lecture hall, classroom space and the drop-in Carol and Gerry Parker Art Studio. Opened in November 2016, the museum has earned numerous architectural honors, including being named one of the 25 Best Museum Buildings of the Past 100 Years by ARTnews. The museum is Free for All.
Contact
manettishrem@ucdavis.edu
Manetti Shrem Museum of Art
254 Old Davis Road
Davis, CA, 95616
United States
Captions
- Installation views, Ruby Neri: Taking the Deep Dive at the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art, UC Davis, January 26–May 5, 2025. Photo credit: © Muzi Rowe. Photos owned by the Jan Shrem and Maria Manetti Shrem Museum of Art.
- Ruby Neri, Cat Food, 2023. Ceramic with glaze, 74 ½ x 49 ½ x 38 ½ in. Photo: Jeff McLane.
Courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery. - Ruby Neri, Taking the Deep Dive, 2024. Ceramic with glaze, 81 x 74 x 13 in. Photo: Jeff
McLane. Courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery. - Ruby Neri, Woman Reclining in Landscape, 2023. Ceramic with glaze, 44 1/2 x 22 x 19 in. Photo: Jeff McLane. Courtesy of David Kordansky Gallery.
