Christy Rupp

Christy Rupp (born 1949) is an American artist and activist. She lives and works in New York City and the Hudson Valley in New York. Her work is inspired by the study of animal behavior. She is one of a group of early eco-artists concerned with urban ecology and our perceptions of nature. Her work has been shown extensively at galleries and museums.

As a resident of lower Manhattan in the late 1970s she exhibited in early artist run spaces including Exit Art, 3 Mercer Street Store, (a precursor to Fashion Moda, Franklin Furnace, the Kitchen, Artists Space, The Clocktower and PS1 International Studio Program, and ABC No Rio. Artists illegally occupied an abandoned city owned building for the groundbreaking Real Estate Show. She participated in the explosion of late 1970’s artist generated activity which included Collaborative Projects, Group Material, Artists Call Against US Intervention in Central America, (a nationwide mobilization of writers, artists, activists, artists organizations, and solidarity groups that began in New York in 1983), P.A.D.D.( Political Artists Documentation and Distribution), Artmakers, Ventana ( a collective of artists in Support of the Artists threatened by US aggression in the Contra wars of the 80’s in Central America). Her work appeared in early publications of The Soho News, East Village Eye, Heresies: A Feminist Publication on Art and Politics,World War 3 Illustrated, and Bomb Magazine.

The first publicly visible work was "The Rat Patrol," which was an outdoor postor project of a life-size rat pasted where garbage accumulated, pointing out the fact the city is a living ecosystem with a delicate balance. "Surely a photograph of a rat borrowed from the NYC Health Department files and mechanically reproduced is not a creation of artistic imagination...it would be unthinkable to see the picture on exhibition in a museum."Douglas Crimp.

Mid Career and Recent Work

In the mid 1980s Rupp turned her attention to global ecological struggles, such as agribusiness and water contamination. One example being the "Watershed Glassware" set of glasses for drinking tap water, featuring printed images of "perfectly harmless" organisms like Giardia, Cryptosporidium, and Fluoride. She began to make public art works including “Social Progress,” a commission for the Public Art Fund. Recent works include sculptures of fake ivory and its association with commercial arms trade and oil extraction. In a statement, the artist explains that her work is less about animals than it is concerned with our attitudes towards habitat. Other recent works include the series "Extinct Birds Previously Consumed by Humans (From the Brink of Extinction to the Supermarket)," that was shown at the Museum of Art and Design's exhibition, "Dead or Alive." Rupp received the Creating a Living Legacy Award from the Joan Mitchell Foundation in 2015 and the Anonymous Was a Woman Award in 2010.

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