Career
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]