Rita McBride (b. 1960, Des Moines, Iowa; lives and works in Los Angeles and Düsseldorf) is an important multimedia artist whose practice encompasses architecture, industrial design, video and new media art, printmaking, fiber art, and more. After studying fine art at Bard College and the California Institute of the Arts, McBride began experimenting with sculpture and architectural design in 1987. Her sculptural work ranges in size from small objects to large works on an architectural scale, and she has received many commissions for large, public works of art and design over the years. McBride is known for creating works of art and design which toy with traditional senses of scale, perception, and material use and associations. From desktop-sized bronze models of parking garages, to oversized cut metal keys, to woven tapestries, to monumentally sized plastic architectural sculptures, McBride’s work questions viewers’ preconceptions about the purpose of art and design, what can be called art and design, and how the public should interact with it. Her video art practice has often been informed by work she has done in other media, as seen, for example, with Mae West, a giant sculpture made in Munich with accompanying prints, metal cutout sculptures, a tapestry, and a video artwork.

Major public commissions of McBride’s include Particulates, Dia Art Foundation, New York, 2017; Obelisk of Tutankhamun, Cologne, Germany, 2017; Donkey’s Way, Mönchengladbach, Germany, 2016; Artifacts (C.W.D), P.S. 315, Queens, New York, 2015; Bells and Whistles, The New School, New York, 2014; and Mae West, Munich, Germany, 2011. Recent solo institutional exhibitions include Rita McBride: Explorer, Wiels, Brussels, 2017; Rita McBride: Gesellschaft, Kestnergesellschaft, Hannover/Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Germany, 2015-2016; Public Tilt, Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, California, 2014; Public Transaction, Museo Rufino Tamayo, Mexico City, Mexico, 2013-2014; Public Tender, Museu d‘Art Contemporani de Barcelona, Spain, 2012; Previously, Kunstmuseum Winterthur, Switzerland, 2010; and Public Works, Museum Abteiberg, Mönchengladbach, 2008.[1]

McBride is currently a professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, and she is married to fellow artist Glen Rubsamen. McBride is represented by Alexander and Bonin in New York, Mai 36 Galerie in Zurich, and Alfonso Artiaco in Naples.

 Review

Rita McBride: "Over the years, people have sometimes thought that my solo shows were group shows. I was always kind of happy about that. But visitors who have maintained interest in what I’ve been doing for the last three decades don’t have trouble identifying the vocabulary. I do have a method, a trajectory—it’s fundamentally rooted in “modernism.

Read More