Jim Ricks

Jim Ricks is an American conceptual artist, writer, and curator. He has exhibited internationally, including public art projects. He started painting graffiti in the early 1990s. He studied photography at the California College of the Arts, and received a Masters from the National University of Ireland, Galway/Burren College of Art programme (2007).

Career Drone imagery incorporated into the traditional method of Afghan carpet making, shown at the Imperial War Museum 2017. alt=Drone imagery incorporated into the traditional method of Afghan carpet making.

Ricks utilises appropriation, institutional critique, politics, and humour.

Ricks was a director of 126 Artist-run Gallery from 2007 to 2009, curating and working with artist-run spaces. Under Stephanie Syjuco, he created knock-offs of work at the Frieze Art Fair in London, 2009.

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. In 2015, in Afghanistan, he made Carpet Bombing, a traditionally fabricated carpet with military drones imagery – an update of Afghan's war rugs. He participated in the 2017 Ghetto Biennale, Port-au-Prince, Haiti.

Public projects

Poulnabrone Bouncy Dolmen is a large inflatable sculpture designed to play on. Cristín Leach of The Sunday Times wrote: "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." It was shown with Jeremy Deller's 2012 inflatable Stonehenge in Belfast, and in the Royal Hibernian Academy. 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 ..."". The project has travelled Ireland, Afghanistan, South Africa, Australia, the United States, and Mexico, recording and then exhibiting the thoughts of many people on the subject of truth in several countries. 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 Sesiones Publicas, San Agustín, La Lisa, Cuba, a LASA project, August 2017.

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". This included an unauthorised exhibition, an open call, a solo show (Bubblewrap Game: Hugh Lane), and closing performances. Aidan Dunne of the Irish Times describes Ricks's offerings as a "a museum within the museum"

Ricks was part of Age of Terror: Art since 9/11 at the Imperial War Museum, London, 2018–19.

He exhibited work made in Afghanistan with Ryan Alexiev, Hank Willis Thomas, and Najeebullah Najeeb at the Trotsky Museum in Mexico City in 2022.

Solo exhibitions 2010 – Synchromaterialism, Pallas Contemporary Projects, Dublin, Ireland 2015 – Alien Invader Super Baby (Synchromaterialism IV) Onomatopee, Eindhoven, The Netherlands 2018 – Museo Ambulante Sebastián, Mexico City, Mexico 2020 – Así Luce la Democracia | This is What Democracy Looks Like, Galeria Daniela Elbahara, Mexico City, Mexico 2021–2022 – El camino a París y Londres pasa por las aldeas de Afganistán, Leon Trotsky Museum, Mexico City