Jim Ricks is an American–born Irish conceptual artist, writer, and curator. He has exhibited throughout Ireland and internationally, including a number of public art projects.[1][2]

Jim Ricks
Born
San Francisco, California, United States
NationalityUnited States,
Ireland
Alma materCalifornia College of the Arts,
National University of Ireland, Galway
Burren College of Art
Known forPoulnabrone Bouncy Dolmen, In Search of the Truth, Carpet Bombing
Websitejimricks.info

Early life and education

edit

Ricks was born in San Francisco, California.[3] He started painting graffiti in the early 1990s.[4] He studied photography and graduated from the California College of the Arts (2002), and received a Masters degree from the National University of Ireland, Galway, and Burren College of Art programme (2007).[5][6][7][8][9]

Career

edit
 
"This is What Democracy Looks Like" solo exhibition at Galeria Daniela Elbahara, Mexico City, 2020
 
Drone imagery incorporated into the traditional method of Afghan carpet making, shown at the Imperial War Museum 2017.
 
"Poulnabrone Bouncy Dolmen", County Clare, Ireland, 2011
 
In Search of the Truth with For Freedoms, 2018[10]

Ricks's work utilises appropriation, institutional critique, politics, and humour.[3][11] He has had solo shows in the United States, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Mexico.[12]

Ricks was director of 126 Artist-run Gallery from 2007 to 2009, curating a number of shows and organizing exchanges with other artist-run spaces.[13] With Stephanie Syjuco, he created knock-offs of work at the Frieze Art Fair in London, 2009.[14][15]

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 in exhibition, performance, and print since 2010.[16][17] In 2015 he travelled to Afghanistan to make Carpet Bombing, a large traditionally made carpet featuring imagery of military drones – an updated version of Afghan's war rugs.[18][19] He participated in the 2017 Ghetto Biennale, Port-au-Prince, Haiti.[20]

Public projects

edit
  • Poulnabrone Bouncy Dolmen is a large inflatable sculpture designed for people to interact with and play on.[21][8] It is a twice-the-size replica of a 6,000-year-old megalithic portal tomb, the Poulnabrone Dolmen situated in The Burren, County Clare. It traveled to venues around the Aughty Region of County Galway in June 2011 and was a Galway County Council project.[22][23] Cristín Leach of The Sunday Times wrote:

    "We need to start thinking more creatively about public art. Jim Ricks has. 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."[24]

    The piece was also shown alongside Jeremy Deller's 2012 inflatable Stonehenge, Sacrilege, in Belfast,[23][25] and was featured in the Royal Hibernian Academy exhibition Futures 12.[5][26][6]
  • Ricks is working on the long-term, global public art project In Search of the Truth (or En Busca de la Verdad ). It is a collaboration with Ryan Alexiev, Hank Willis Thomas .[27][28][29] The New York Times writes: "The “Truth Booth,” a roving, inflatable creation, 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 …"".[30] The project has travelled Ireland, Afghanistan, South Africa, Australia, the United States, and Mexico,[31][32] recording and then exhibiting the thoughts of many people on the subject of truth in several countries.[33][34][35]
  • 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[36]
  • Sesiones Publicas, San Agustín, La Lisa, Cuba, a LASA project, August 2017.[37]

Museum projects

edit

Ricks was invited to participate in a 2 year project called Sleepwalkers (2012–15) at the Hugh Lane Gallery in Dublin. He was one of six artists invited to use the museum's resources, in an "unusual experiment in exhibition production".[38] Ricks's contributions included a tribute to Richard Hamilton (artist), unauthorized exhibitions, his solo show: Bubblewrap Game: Hugh Lane, 2013 – 14, and a closing event which included James Barry in 2014.[39][40] Aidan Dunne of the Irish Times describes Ricks's participation as a "curatorial process of selection and validation, making a museum within the museum comprising works from the real collection, artworks borrowed from elsewhere, non-art objects from flea markets and a commissioned copy of an Ed Ruscha painting."[11]

He exhibited at the Trotsky Museum in Mexico City in 2022.

Solo exhibitions

edit

Bibliography

edit
  • Ricks, Jim (Editor), Artist-run democracy: sustaining a model, 15 years of 126 gallery, Eindhoven: Onomatopee, 2022. ISBN 9789493148734[45]
  • de Búrca, Ella, Michaële Cutaya, Jim Ricks. IRLDADA: 201916. Mexico City: Black Crown Press, 2019. ISBN 9780578546940 [46]
  • 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

See also

edit

References

edit
  1. ^ "Future Artist-Maker Labs". futureartistmakers.org. Retrieved 2 December 2019.
  2. ^ a b "Mexico City roundup - Features - art-agenda". www.art-agenda.com. Retrieved 14 March 2020.
  3. ^ a b c "Ricks takes art to a new form". The Clare Champion. 28 October 2010. Retrieved 29 November 2019.
  4. ^ Chen, Wei-Huan. "Graffiti warfare". Journal & Courier. Retrieved 25 May 2020.
  5. ^ a b "The Poulnabrone Bouncy Dolmen". publicart. Retrieved 26 September 2018.
  6. ^ a b Rainsford, John (28 October 2010). "Ricks takes art to a new form". The Clare Champion. Retrieved 26 September 2018.
  7. ^ "Working in tandem from across the divide". The Clare Champion. 14 March 2013. Retrieved 26 September 2018.
  8. ^ a b c "Sleepwalkers: Jim Ricks – Bubblewrap Game: Hugh Lane". hughlane. 31 October 2013. Archived from the original on 14 December 2017. Retrieved 26 September 2018.
  9. ^ "CCA alums at the heart of public art in NYC". CCA. Retrieved 5 April 2022.
  10. ^ "150+ Artists and Billboard Locations Announced As Part of The Largest Public Art Project in U.S. History". ArtfixDaily. Retrieved 28 November 2020.
  11. ^ a b c Dunne, Aidan. "Sleepwalkers: Artistic experiments in biting the hand that feeds". The Irish Times. Retrieved 29 November 2019.
  12. ^ "Proyecto interactivo mundial de arte "En Busca de la Verdad" llega a la Plaza de la Democracia en Puebla - Puebla - Cultura". La Jornada de Oriente (in European Spanish). 8 October 2018. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
  13. ^ "Circa Art Magazine - Rayne Booth's blog - The year of the exchange (Friday 1 May 2009)". 6 April 2013. Archived from the original on 6 April 2013. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
  14. ^ Mahoney, Donald (23 October 2009). "The Art of Imitation". The Irish Times. Retrieved 26 September 2018.
  15. ^ Syjuco, Stephanie (8 November 2009). "Frieze-ing in London (pt 2): postface". SFMOMA. Retrieved 26 September 2018.
  16. ^ a b "Jim Ricks—Synchromaterialism". Retrieved 14 December 2018.
  17. ^ a b "ALIEN INVADER SUPER BABY (SYNCHROMATERIALISM IV)". Retrieved 14 December 2018.
  18. ^ Salomone, Andrew (23 August 2016). "This Handmade Rug Is a Drone Survival Guide". The Creators Project. Retrieved 26 September 2018.
  19. ^ "Despite its flaws, 'Age of Terror: Art since 9/11' is a timely reflection of artists' responses to conflict - DesignCurial". www.designcurial.com. Retrieved 26 January 2021.
  20. ^ "Fifth Edition of Ghetto Biennale Announces Participating Artists". Artforum. 8 August 2017. Retrieved 17 December 2018.
  21. ^ Siggins, Lorna (28 August 2010). "'Bouncy dolmen' goes on show". The Irish Times. Retrieved 26 September 2018.
  22. ^ "Bouncy megalith comes to the Aughtys". The Clare Champion. 19 August 2010. Retrieved 26 September 2018.
  23. ^ a b Higgins, Charlotte (2 May 2012). "Glaswegian shoes come off for bouncy Stonehenge". The Guardian. Retrieved 26 September 2018.
  24. ^ Leach, Cristín (5 June 2011). "Let's hear it for the still, beating heart of our artistic landscape". The Sunday Times.
  25. ^ Murphy, Liz (18 May 2012). "Karla, Jeremy and Margaret (my Mum)". A-N Magazine. #90, June 2012: 30 – via Issuu.
  26. ^ "Bouncy Tomb Tours Ireland". Make. Retrieved 26 September 2018.
  27. ^ "IN SEARCH OF THE TRUTH | CAUSE COLLECTIVE".
  28. ^ "In Search of the Truth".
  29. ^ "Jim Ricks". artnet.com. Retrieved 29 November 2019.
  30. ^ Randy Kennedy. Political Art in a Fractious Election Year "The New York Times", 17 July 2016
  31. ^ "Cause Collective: In Search of the Truth (The Truth Booth)". Public Art Fund. 8 May 2016. Retrieved 26 September 2018.
  32. ^ Corcoran, Georgia (30 April 2014). "To tell the Truth". Visual Artists' News Sheet.
  33. ^ Paul, Laster (12 August 2014). "Art Basel Visitors Tell All in Hank Willis Thomas' 'Truth Booth'". The Observer. Retrieved 26 September 2018.
  34. ^ "In Search of the Truth: The Truth Booth by Cause Collective". Bomb. 22 November 2013. Retrieved 26 September 2018.
  35. ^ "In Search of the Truth (The Truth Booth)". Galway International Arts Festival. 24 July 2011. Retrieved 26 September 2018.
  36. ^ Quinn, Andrew (6 May 2016). "Abercorn Road Mural Unveiled". Derry Journal. Retrieved 26 September 2018.
  37. ^ "Jim Ricks (Estados Unidos/Irlanda/México)". LASA. 11 August 2017.
  38. ^ "Sleepwalkers: Production as Process". Archived from the original on 6 February 2023. Retrieved 14 December 2018.
  39. ^ "Sleepwalkers". Sleepwalkers. Retrieved 28 November 2020.
  40. ^ Edited by Dempsey, Michael, and Logan Sisley. ‘’Sleepwalkers’’. Dublin: Hugh Lane Gallery and Ridinghouse, 2015. ISBN 9781905464982
  41. ^ "MutualArt.com - The Web's Largest Art Information Service". www.mutualart.com. Retrieved 22 November 2020.
  42. ^ "Jim Ricks reinterpreta a Sebastián" (in Spanish). 28 May 2018. Retrieved 11 March 2019.
  43. ^ "Así luce la democracia: la exposición de Jim Ricks en la galería Daniela Elbahara". revistacodigo.com (in Spanish). Retrieved 14 March 2020.
  44. ^ Museos, De. "Entrevista | Los caminos de la verdad de Jim Ricks". De Museos (in Mexican Spanish). Retrieved 22 March 2022.
  45. ^ "Artist-run democracy: sustaining a model | Onomatopee". www.onomatopee.net. Retrieved 4 March 2022.
  46. ^ Ricks, Jim; Cutaya, Michaële; Búrca, Ella de (21 September 2019). Irldada: 201916. Black Crown Press. ISBN 9780578546940.
edit