Dean Ruck was born in Hamden, Connecticut on March 4, 1962. Since 1987, he has lived in Houston working with a variety of mediums, including drawings and sculptures. His works as of now are in the Museum of Fine Arts Houston, the City of Houston, Cranbrook Art Museum, and many private collectors have them as well.
Havel Ruck Projects consists of two artists: Dan Havel and Dean Ruck. It is mainly a joint partnership between the two where they “repurpose” condemned and undesired buildings. One of these collaborations was a series of temporary public sculptures in the Houston community. When making Fifth Ward Jam, the building was transported to an open lot in the middle of the night on an oversized truck. Supports were placed haphazardly all over the space of the house, and then they and the roof were carefully torn down bit by bit. It was eventually reconstructed into what looks like a wave of wood crashing down, and even had a group of musicians playing there in celebration of the sculpture being finished. This is my favorite out of all of them because of the chaotic look to the wood.
Another building called Inversion was made by stripping the outside of the house(s?) and placed in way that the result was a tunnel giving the illusion of going on a ways due to the darkness and the distant-looking light at the end of it. The trick was that the end of the tunnel was actually placed through a fence, and was so small that a person had to crawl through it to get out. According to Chron, “Inversion told a story about a whirlwind, a vortex whipping through.” It was one of the better known sculptures in Houston, but was later destroyed for a new Art League building to take its place.
In their Give & Take they cut out abstract shapes all over the house, including the wall, a huge oval out of the floor, as well as chunks of the floor with it. Then, the pieces removed were then reconstructed into an entirely different piece at a museum. Sadly, it was torn down not long after the sculpture was finished. Some pieces, however, had a lifespan of two years for public display.
Havel says in an interview with Houston Business Journal, “A lot of art has to do with the language of architecture. Being aware of space and how it relates is a big focus of the project. We approached the houses as one big object—not as something small in a container—but something we could carve.”
The Havel Ruck projects they had done were noted in the No Zoning: Artists Engage Houston, where past and present artists were considered for working in the Houston area. It was mostly about how Houston uses “a mixed-use approach…[M]any Houston artists have been able to carve out spaces and opportunities for themselves, their work, and their communities.”
http://deanruck.com/havel-ruck-projects
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G9rFIQwfgQs
http://www.houstonartsalliance.com/folklife/past/fifth-ward-jam/
http://deanruck.com/havel-ruck-projects/view/41
http://www.chron.com/entertainment/article/Gray-Inversion-creators-are-back-for-more-1744394.php
http://www.bizjournals.com/houston/stories/2005/05/09/focus2.html?page=all
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2047445/The-men-make-houses-explode-sake-art.html
http://camh.org/exhibitions/brown/no-zoning-artists-engage-houston#.U0ueW_ldWSo