Marginal Revolution

Solo Exhibition: Ryder Richards

Crate: Project [link]
Asheville, NC
Oct 23- Dec 27, 2018

Ryder’s latest works are a series of drawings and paintings of tools wrapped in trash bags. Continuing his discussion of invisible labor, class, and politics the works consider the tendency to marginalize and disenfranchise.

Richards often utilizes tools and acts of labor as a means to embody the individual’s ability within a larger system. In this case logging his hours as he practices his craft produces a conversation about normative valuation of physical utility over reliance on beauty or concept alone. In microcosm, this small move reflects the larger tendency to value individuals for their utility, seeing them as tools to be used, weaponized, and discarded when convenient.

Ryder Richards is a Dallas-based artist, writer, and freelance curator. He co-curated Boom Town at the Dallas Museum of Art, directed The Cube in Roswell, New Mexico as part of a one-year artist-in-residence program, and co-developed the RJP Nomadic Gallery. He has shown work in London, Germany, Spain, China, Greece, Japan, and across the United States. Ryder has been a member/founder of several collaborative art groups including The Art Foundation and Culture Laboratory, as well as participating in the Texas Biennial 2011 and 2013 and the Dallas Biennial 2012 and 2014.

Ryder taught college art for ten years, travels, attends art residencies, and writes the occasional art review, which prompted him to found EUTOPIA: Contemporary Art Reviews. Currently, he is creates a podcast, Let Us THINK About It, and daily insights at Belly Button Lint.