Jim Ricks—Synchromaterialism

Jim Ricks has developed the method of synchro-materialism as a means to consider the territory where art meets capitalism. To do this properly, history must be re-worked, splintered and re-imagined. Ricks will use the quotidian fragments of capitalism and empire in the last century to weave a new ‘conspiratorial’ narrative that undercuts and supersedes the prevailing mainstream ones. Subjective slices of everyday life and history are collected and, depending on scarcity, re-created. They will be displayed according to an intuitive synchronicity based on politics, aesthetics, history, and philosophy. Disjointed and unexpected symbols of struggle and power will form a ring of interconnected information in the gallery space.

An ongoing theme in Ricks’ practice of collecting iconic, odd and politically accessible chachka has led him to markets from Cairo to San Diego to Berlin to Ebay and beyond. He uses the most basic mechanisms of capitalism: markets, transactions and accumulation as the underlying system for the creation of a body of work. However, if Ricks cannot purchase an artefact for a reasonable price or at all, he will remake it. The ‘art’ of this work comes into play with his editorial vision and curation of these found and re-created objects and there re- positioning alongside disparate other ones. By not covering one particular aspect of capitalism Ricks asks the viewer the more abstract questions: How do we know these things? How did these things come to be?

Biography:

Jim Ricks is a project–based contemporary visual artist that aims to disrupt the bourgeois narrative. His work is influenced by his background as a prolific graffiti artist and a political activist. This is his first solo exhibition in Dublin. Born in California, Ricks received his MFA from the National University of Ireland, Galway and Burren College of Art programme and his BFA from the California College of the Arts. Ricks is currently working on a touring public work, Poulnabrone Bouncy Dolmen, as well as collaborating on In Search of the Truth (The Truth Booth) with Cause Collective (US), Summer 2011.

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