'How to Look Wrong': The vibrant art of Ruben Nusz
The exhibition of 19 abstract paintings by Minneapolis artist Ruben Nusz at the Weinstein Hammons Gallery in south Minneapolis is a tightly packed examination of color theory, optical illusion, spatial logic, art history and pop culture.
The paintings in “How to Look Wrong” are small (most measure about eight by ten inches) and exquisitely razor-sharp jewel boxes, with bright yellows, greens, blues and reds shining through dense geometry.
“I don’t think he leaves any rock unturned, and I think his precision is unmatched,” says gallery owner Leslie Hammons, who describes his work as steeped in art history.
One of his new works, called “A Married Couple Looking in the Mirror (after Jan van Eyck’s Arnolfini Portrait)” (2023), references the famous 15th-century Flemish painting that used a mirror to expand the picture plane. In the Nusz version, red and green spheres take center stage, throwing shadows and repeating themselves like a mirrored image.
Create a More Connected Minnesota
MPR News is your trusted resource for the news you need. With your support, MPR News brings accessible, courageous journalism and authentic conversation to everyone - free of paywalls and barriers. Your gift makes a difference.
“One of the things I’m thinking about is these different genres of picture-making and how to sort of put them all into a specific picture. So, you’re looking at what is a trompe-l’oeil geometric still life,” Nusz says. “Within that, you have a sort of stage set, and then you have these two circular forms that start to present themselves in an anthropomorphized way as if they’re figures.”
Nusz also taps more contemporary inspiration, like the old arcade favorite Ms. Pac-Man and how the game uses an implied spatial realm beyond what we see on screen.
“You can kind of see the influence of Ms. Pac-Man on the color. There’s bright yellow chomping circles,” Nusz says, standing in front of his painting in the gallery. “But I think the thing that I’ve always loved about Ms. Pac-Man, the arcade version, is when Ms. Pac-Man is able to move off to the left side of the frame and come back around to the right side. And I always like thinking about that with painting and this space beyond the picture plane, like how can I use this spatial logic and apply it to a painting?”
Many of his paintings are also inspired by a reference closer to home: Minnesota comedian Mitch Hedberg, who died in 2005 — or more specifically, his frozen banana joke.
The joke goes: “My friend asked me if I wanted a frozen banana. I said no, but I want a regular banana later, so yeah.”
“The reason I love that joke so much is because of how it plays with our concept of time,” Nusz says. “I think what’s always magnificent about painting is in painting, it’s not like a river, right? It doesn’t flow like a river, you move backwards and forwards in time as you’re thinking about painting.”
The exhibition runs through Aug. 12.
