In “Sunrise Highway,” the essay published alongside his exhibition at Dia Bridgehampton, Alan Ruiz writes that “light mediates the visibility of spatial relations.” He means that daylight makes social divisions visible. It shows who occupies a space, who maintains it, and who moves through it freely. On Long Island’s East End, the same sun that defines the leisure of a Hamptons summer also structures the working day for the largely immigrant laborers who tend the region’s lawns, pools, and houses. Many travel east each morning along Sunrise Highway and return west at the end of the day, following the same path as the sun. At the center of the exhibition “De sol a sol” stands WS-H2AB. This fence-like row of metal fins with mirrored edges casts shadows that migrate across the gallery, catching visitors in their own reflections. Behind it, Daybreakers, a swimming pool light-wired to a crowdsourced feed of local ICE sightings, pulses on and off. Sunlight falls evenly, Ruiz suggests, but the terms under which people meet it do not. —Clara Scholl
Arts Intel Report
Alan Ruiz: De sol a sol
Alan Ruiz, WS-H2AB (detail), 2026.
When
Until June 1, 2027
Where
Etc
Photo: ©Alan Ruiz. Photo: Bill Jacobson Studio, New York