James Richards

Image, Sound, Collaboration

An investigation into what it is to bring things together.”

Artist James Richards’s practice encompasses expanded film, video, and installation. His provocative and visually seductive moving-image works collage together a wide range of source material, ranging from intimate home movies, archival footage, and television signals to rich musical soundtracks. Richards explores the intersection of technology, identity, and human experience to examine themes of obsession and desire in immersive and multi-layered narratives. Although his practice cannily addresses the relentless flow of imagery in the twenty-first century, it also carves a singular space where the personal, political, and digital meet. “The core of my work is an investigation into what it is to bring things together—using collage or the edit as a compositional or writerly tool,” says Richards, who often collaborates with other artists either as composer, visual artist, or curator.

James Richards, Migratory Motor Complex (2017). Installation view of "Music for the gift," Wales in Venice, 57th Venice Biennale, Venice, 2017. Courtesy of the artist, Rodeo London/ Piraeus and Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi. Photo: Jamie Woodley
James Richards, Requests and Antisongs (2015). Collage on paper. Courtesy of the artist.
James Richards, Qualities of Life: Living in the radiant cold (2022) Digital video with sound, courtesy the artist.
James Richards, Qualities of Life: Living in the radiant cold (2022). Digital video with sound. Courtesy of the artist.
James Richards, Qualities of Life: Living in the radiant cold, (2022). Courtesy of the artist, the Estate of Horst Ademeit, and Fondazione In Between Art Film.

Richards’s recent solo exhibitions include Our Friends in the Audience, Kunstnernes Hus, Oslo (2024); Workers in Song (with Billy Bultheel) at MUDAM, Luxembourg (2024) and at Wiels, Brussels (2023); Internal Litter at Galerie Isabella Bortolozzi, Berlin (2022); When We Were Monsters at Haus Mödrath–Räume für Kunst, Kerpen (2021-2022); Alms for the Birds at Castello Di Rivoli, Torino (2020); SPEED 1 and SPEED 2 with Leslie Thornton at Malmö Konsthall and Künstlerhaus Stuttgart (2019). Richards was shortlisted for the Turner Prize in 2014. In 2017, he represented Wales at the 57th Venice Biennale and was awarded the Preis der Nationalgalerie 2024. 

As a mentor, Richards is seeking projects by practitioners who are “thinking in new ways about collaboration and exchange between artists,” or who are working with practices that expand our ideas of what it is to edit or recombine already existing things. Projects could involve spoken word, sound, moving image, installation, and text. “I’m particularly excited to meet those who are perhaps looking to test out new approaches or expand the media they are working in. It would be great to hear from artists for whom Forecast comes at a transitional time in their practice and who will benefit from the resources, mentorship, and presentation to really shift their work into as yet unexplored areas.”

“A strong sense of play excites me, as does a more forensic eye and ear, an attunement to what it means to encounter images in the present moment.”

Richards’s practice-rooted approach is backed by the conviction that play and improvisation are as generative as thematic research. “I see this as a two-way process and am looking for someone with whom we can both develop and evolve through the dialog. I hope we will inspire each other and for this to be shared journey and exchange.”

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