Jim Ricks is a US-born Irish conceptual artist, writer and curator. He has exhibited throughout Ireland and internationally, including a number of public art projects.
Ricks "was a key participant in" Frieze Projects’ COPYSTAND: Autonomous Manufacturing Zone at the Frieze Art Fair in London, 2009. He created the touring public artwork, the Poulnabrone Bouncy Dolmen in 2010 and In Search of the Truth in 2011. Since 2010 "Jim Ricks has developed the method of synchro-materialism as a means to consider the territory where art meets capitalism", utilizing this methodology in exhibition, performance and print. In 2015 he returned to Afghanistan to make Carpet Bombing, a large traditional textile piece featuring imagery of military drones – an updated version of Afghan's war rugs. Ricks has had solo shows in the United States, Ireland, the Netherlands, and Mexico.
Public projects
Poulnabrone Bouncy Dolmen, a large inflatable sculpture designed for people to interact with and play on. This artwork originally traveled to venues around the Aughty Region of county Galway in June 2011 and was created with funding from the Galway County Council. The Poulnabrone Bouncy Dolmen is a twice-the-size replica of a 6,000-year-old megalithic portal tomb, the Poulnabrone Dolmen situated in the Burren, Co. Clare. Cristin Leach, art critic for 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? Maher has endorsed it as “the best public art piece...ever”. She might just be right." The piece was shown alongside Jeremy Deller's Sacrilege in Belfast and was featured in the Royal Hibernian Academy exhibition Futures 12 both in 2012.
Ricks is working on the long-term and global public art project In Search of the Truth . Also known as "The Truth Booth" it is in collaboration with Ryan Alexiev, Hank Willis Thomas, and more recently with Will Sylvester, and Jorge Sanchez, all members of Cause Collective. The New York Times writes: "The “Truth Booth,” a roving, inflatable creation by a group of artists calling itself the Cause Collective. The 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 …"". To date, the project has travelled Ireland, Afghanistan, South Africa, Australia, the United States, and Mexico. It embarked on a world tour at the Galway Arts Festival, Ireland in 2011. Throughout this long-term project the video footage is compiled and edited into a video artwork. To expand and engage with audiences, the movements of "The Truth Booth" and sample responses are tracked, edited, and categorized on a website. Ultimately, the goal of this project is to try to capture as many definitions, confessions and thoughts on The Truth as possible, creating a diverse ‘portrait’ of people across the globe. In Search of the Truth was exhibited as part of the Melbourne Fringe Festival in September of 2019.
Sesiones Publicas, San Agustín, La Lisa, Cuba, a LASA project, August 2017.
Museum projects
Sleepwalkers at Hugh Lane Gallery curated by Michael Dempsey and Logan Sisley was a two-year project in which six artists were invited to use the museum's resources, reveal their artistic process, and to collaborate with each other in this "unusual experiment in exhibition production". This process culminated in each artist developing a solo exhibition at the Hugh Lane Gallery and a publication. Ricks's contributions included The most important plinth in Ireland a tribute to Richard Hamilton ; an unauthorized, curated, paid, open call exhibition titled: Future Perfect, with 27 artists participating; his solo show: Bubblewrap Game: Hugh Lane, October 2013 – February 2014; and: Everything must go now: One day of tastes, sights, and sounds, which included James Barry, January 2014
