Ryder Richards

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studio kura

“a mere appendage”

solo exhibition by Ryder Richards

Studio Kura [link]
Fukuoka, Japan
June 22-23, 2019

Drawing tools purchased locally from large companies, Richards’ drawings consider the universal trend of DIY. In Japan the common is uncommon, though familiar in form and function. By making meticulous drawings the mundane local tools are elevated -fetishized- and granted a status (or agency) from which to open conversations about a dual state in which the labor class can be precariously valued, while cultural production and DIY hobby-ism fulfills the intellectual laborer.

In America Richards has been drawing tools and creating art installations from Home Depot products for several years. His interest lies in the consumers ability to purchase DIY equipment as a means of self-empowerment, building online communities through Youtube tutorials, and the contradictions inherent to these practices.

Listen: distributing swords is no basis for a system of government
12mm: the violence inherent in the system
15mm: the violence inherent in the system
24mm: the violence inherent in the system
Take a turn: executive officer for the week
Don’t fool yourself: a self perpetuating autocracy
Oh there you go, bringing class into it again
a mandate from the masses
Three way: help, I’m being repressed
hangin’ on to outdated imperialist dogma
An anarcho-syndicalist commune
A Capitalist Smear Tactic

Raised in Roswell, New Mexico Ryder is based outside of McKinney, Texas. He has exhibited internationally, attended many art residencies, curated numerous exhibitions, and maintains a condensed art review publication, Eutopia: Contemporary Art Review. Some of his more interesting projects include converting a Ryder truck into a nomadic art gallery, co-founding a national arts collective, and re-sheetrocking a gallery as an art exhibition.