Jim Ricks
Irish and American contemporary artist
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Jim Ricks is an American conceptual artist, writer, and curator. He has exhibited internationally, including public art projects.[1][2]
National University of Ireland, Galway
Burren College of Art
Jim Ricks | |
|---|---|
| Born | San Francisco, California, United States |
| Alma mater | California College of the Arts, National University of Ireland, Galway Burren College of Art |
| Known for | Poulnabrone Bouncy Dolmen, In Search of the Truth, Carpet Bombing |
| Website | jimricks |
Early life and education
Ricks was born in San Francisco, California.[3] He started painting graffiti in the early 1990s.[4] He studied photography at the California College of the Arts (2002), and received a Masters from the National University of Ireland, Galway/Burren College of Art programme (2007).[5][6][7][8][9]
Career
![Drone imagery incorporated into the traditional method of Afghan carpet making.](#/media/File:"Carpet_Bombing"_-_Predator.jpg)
Ricks utilises appropriation, institutional critique, politics, and humour.[3][10] He has had solo shows in the United States, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Mexico.[11]
Ricks was a director of 126 Artist-run Gallery from 2007 to 2009, curating and working with artist-run spaces.[12] Under Stephanie Syjuco, he created knock-offs of work at the Frieze Art Fair in London, 2009.[13][14]
In an ongoing body of work, "Jim Ricks has developed the method of synchro-materialism as a means to consider the territory where art meets capitalism", and he has used this methodology since 2010.[15][16] In 2015, in Afghanistan, he made Carpet Bombing, a traditionally fabricated carpet with military drones imagery – an update of Afghan's war rugs.[17][18] He participated in the 2017 Ghetto Biennale, Port-au-Prince, Haiti.[19]
Public projects
- Poulnabrone Bouncy Dolmen is a large inflatable sculpture designed to play on.[20][8] It is a double-size replica of the Poulnabrone Dolmen in The Burren. It has traveled around Ireland since June 2011.[21][22] Cristín Leach of The Sunday Times wrote:
It was shown with Jeremy Deller's 2012 inflatable Stonehenge in Belfast,[22][24] and in the Royal Hibernian Academy.[5][25][6]"Poulnabrone Bouncy Dolmen... is a commentary on our past, our present, the concept of "brand Ireland" and the very idea of public art; and everyone is invited to bounce. A temporary, movable, witty, interactive, contemporary public artwork we are all invited to play with? [Alice] Maher has endorsed it as "the best public art piece...ever". She might just be right."[23]
- Ricks worked on the global public art project In Search of the Truth (or En Busca de la Verdad ) with Ryan Alexiev, Hank Willis Thomas .[26][27][28] The New York Times writes: "The "Truth Booth"... in the shape of a cartoon word bubble with "TRUTH" in bold letters on its side, serves as a video confessional. Visitors are asked to sit inside and finish the politically and metaphysically loaded sentence that begins, "The truth is ..."".[29] The project has travelled Ireland, Afghanistan, South Africa, Australia, the United States, and Mexico,[30][31] recording and then exhibiting the thoughts of many people on the subject of truth in several countries.[32][33][34]
- Life's a Beach (Art imitates life), Gable end mural responding to the political Murals in Northern Ireland, Abercorn Rd., Derry, Northern Ireland, April 2016[35]
- Sesiones Publicas, San Agustín, La Lisa, Cuba, a LASA project, August 2017.[36]
Museum projects
Ricks was involved in Sleepwalkers (2012–15), at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin. Artists were invited to an "unusual experiment in exhibition production".[37] This included an unauthorised exhibition, an open call,[38] a solo show (Bubblewrap Game: Hugh Lane),[39] and closing performances.[40] Aidan Dunne of the Irish Times describes Ricks's offerings as a "a museum within the museum"[10] During the programme, he also included works by Richard Hamilton (artist), James Barry, Jeremy Deller, Gerard Dillon, Robert Ballagh, fr:Raphaël_Zarka, and James Hanley.[41][42]
Ricks was part of Age of Terror: Art since 9/11 at the Imperial War Museum, London, 2018–19.[43]
He exhibited work made in Afghanistan with Ryan Alexiev, Hank Willis Thomas, and Najeebullah Najeeb at the Trotsky Museum in Mexico City in 2022.[44][45]
Solo exhibitions
- 2010 – Synchromaterialism, Pallas Contemporary Projects, Dublin, Ireland[15][3]
- 2013–2014 – Bubble Wrap Game: The Hugh Lane, Hugh Lane Gallery, Dublin, Ireland[8][10]
- 2015 – Alien Invader Super Baby (Synchromaterialism IV) Onomatopee, Eindhoven, The Netherlands[16]
- 2016–2017 – Centro de Ontología Nacional, Casa Maauad, Mexico City, Mexico[46]
- 2018 – Museo Ambulante Sebastián, Mexico City, Mexico[47]
- 2020 – Así Luce la Democracia | This is What Democracy Looks Like, Galeria Daniela Elbahara, Mexico City, Mexico[2][48]
- 2021–2022 – El camino a París y Londres pasa por las aldeas de Afganistán, Leon Trotsky Museum, Mexico City[49]
Bibliography
- Ricks, Jim (Editor), Artist-run democracy: sustaining a model, 15 years of 126 gallery, Eindhoven: Onomatopee, 2022. ISBN 9789493148734[50]
- de Búrca, Ella, Michaële Cutaya, Jim Ricks. IRLDADA: 201916. Mexico City: Black Crown Press, 2019. ISBN 9780578546940 [51]
- Ricks, Jim. Alien Invader Super Baby (Synchromaterialism VI). Eindhoven: Onomatopee, 2018. ISBN 9789491677755
- Packer, Matt, Declan Long, and Jim Ricks. "Here Comes The Summer", Derry: Centre for Contemporary Art Derry~Londonderry, 2017.
- Bossan, Enrico. 2016 an image of Ireland : contemporary artists from Ireland. Crocetta del Montello: Antiga edizioni, 2016. ISBN 9788899657185
- Edited by Michael Dempsey and Logan Sisley. Sleepwalkers. Dublin: Hugh Lane Gallery and Ridinghouse, 2015. ISBN 9781905464982