Matthew Ritchie
Encyclopedia
Ritchie attended the Camberwell School of Art 1983-86. He describes himself as "classically trained" but also points to a minimalist
influence.
Ritchie's art revolves around a personal mythology
drawn from creation myths, particle physics
, thermodynamics
, and games of chance, among other elements.
Ritchie is married to Garland Hunter, an artist and actress who appeared in The Tao of Steve
.
, England
in 1964. Ritchie received his BFA from London’s Camberwell School of Art, in the years of 1983-86. He also spent a year enrolled at Boston University
in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1982. Ritchie has established himself in the contemporary fine arts scene since the early 90s, and had his first group exhibition in 1990 at the Judy Nielsen Gallery in Chicago, Illinois. Ritchie’s first solo show, “Working Model,” was shown in New York’s Basilico Fine Arts from February 18-March 18 in 1995. This series of paintings, wall drawings, and sculptures introduced Ritchie into the contemporary genre as an artist who “brought together historically and ideologically different belief systems in an attempt to show their common thread.” .”. Regardless of the medium or material Ritchie uses, all of his work collaborates into a complex meta-narrative structure.
, but his work lies mainly in drawing. Ritchie scans his drawings into the computer so he can manipulate them by blowing them up, deconstructing them, and/or transforming them into three-dimensional pieces. He digitally makes his images smaller and larger in order to further develop his ideas beyond paper. In an interview with Art: 21, Ritchie explains his drawing process here: “I start with a collection of ideas...and I draw out all these different motifs, and then I lay them on top of each other. So I have piles of semi-transparent drawings all layered on top of each other in my studio and they form a kind of tunnel of information. Out of that, you can pull this form that turns into the sculpture or the painting. It’s literally like pulling the narrative
out of overlaying all of the structures. That’s how I end up with this structure. It’s derived from a series of drawings that I scan into the computer and refine through various processes...and send to the sheet-metal shop down the road where it’s cut out of metal and assembled into larger structures which are too big for my studio.” This method allows Ritchie to reshape his images into sculptures, floor-to-wall installations, interactive web sites, and short stories.
, philosophy
, and science
in order to create his complicated, yet freshly simple works. “Influenced by everything from the mythic escapades of comic-book superheroes and pagan gods to the meta-narratives of philosophy, religion, and science, Ritchie has developed a mythical narrative or cosmology of his own, and his art is communicated via a variety of art spaces and installations, including galleries throughout the world and the World Wide Web.” In an interview with Art: 21, Ritchie states that he reads Nature Magazine, which is a weekly journal that publishes technical articles about contemporary scientific findings. Ritchie’s pieces have a scientific nature to them, but do not solely represent scientific agenda. Instead, his work investigates the role of science within society, creating a narrative between order and chaos. In Ritchie’s Art: 21 interviews, he explains his interest in science as “a way of having a conversation that’s based on an idea of looking at things than I am in the rhetoric around science.” In other words, Ritchie is not trying to depict scientific data accurately. He uses his research in order to find topics that are important to him, to which he then illustrates in his work. Ritchie’s work tends to include various references that expand into a comprehensive explanation historical experience or knowledge. His meta-narratives combine all of the philosophies that interest him, and place them into a structure of information that can be bombarding, but seem to be able to go on endlessly. His work deals with the theme of information. Ritchie explains this theme with a few rhetorical questions and statements: “…for me the theme of my new structure was information, how do you deal with it? As a person is it possible for you to grasp everything and see everything? You’re presented with everything and all through your life you’re trying to filter out, you’re really just trying to control that flow.” These questions posed by Ritchie rightfully describe his thought process while creating his art
, allowing the viewer to better understand his pieces beyond their aesthetic characteristics.
work, Ritchie’s investigation of New Media
has further developed his universal narrative into the interactive realm. In 2001, Ritchie was commissioned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
to be a part of e.space, which was created to examine art forms that can only exist on the World Wide Web. Ritchie, along with six other artists: Erik Adigard
, Lynn Hershman, Yael Kanarek
, Mark Napier
, Thomson & Craighead
, and Julia Scher
, created stories that could only be told through the computer screen. Before his collaboration with the SFMOMA, Ritchie developed his first interactive piece in 1996 with the help of äda 'web, a research and development platform that services artists in order to create online interactive projects. In his piece titled, The Hard Way, Ritchie combines several of his previous projects into an interactive site that allow the viewer to navigate through the website, experiencing the narrative by following Ritchie’s imagined avatars that represent infamous personality traits that can be found throughout our own history. Through his text, drawings, and computer-animated realms, The Hard Way serves as a prequel to his piece with the SFMOMA, titled, The New Place. The New Place was created in 2001, and is entwined with Ritchie’s larger project, Proposition Player. The New Place includes mediums outside the web, using sculpture, painting, computer games, and other forms that are not yet defined in this “very large cross-media plan,” serving as a trailer of sorts, previewing things to come. The Proposition Player was created in 2003 for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. This piece explores Ritchie’s thoughts on gambling and quantum mechanics, and the illusions that come along with the elements of chance and risk. Ritchie explains the motive behind this piece here in his 2005 interview with Art: 21: “It’s about the idea that in the moment between placing your bet and the result of the bet there is a kind of infinite freedom because all the possibilities are there. "You may already be a winner!" It’s fantastic—you’re like a god! Everything opens up.” This exhibition asked the audience to take part, and “play” Ritchie’s invented game. Visitors were given a playing card by the exhibition guard, in which they would use to take part within Ritchie’s proposition game. Outside of the exhibition’s context, these cards could function as a usable deck of cards, since hey attribute all of the traditional suits, even including the joker
. But in Ritchie’s context, each card symbolized one of the 49 characteristics that Ritchie used to create a story that described the evolution of the entire universe.
and Bonnie Collura. Like these two artists, Ritchie draws upon philosophical, religious, and scientific narratives to create a complex universe where these theories can be circulated amongst one another. In these artists’ works, webs of data are formed in artistic compositions that reference the questions that society continues to base their meaning of existence on. Ritchie’s work personifies these questions into art.
, which began to take shape as an art form in the late 1980s. New Media manipulates the medium of digital art
, and uses the technology itself as the medium. Through the writings of individuals such as Lev Manovich
, Marshall McLuhan
, and Roy Ascott
, New Media
has been defined, and allotted for artists such as Ritchie to explore and create within the realm of interactive art
.
The interaction between online databases and meta-narrative structures are discussed in Christiane Paul’s 2004 essay, The Database
as System and Cultural Form: Anatomies of Cultural Narratives. This essay sheds further light on meta-narrative structure within the premise of New Media. Paul describes this connection here: “databases do lend themselves to a categorization of information and narratives that can then be filtered to create meta-narratives about the construction and cultural specifics of the original material.”. Similar to past New Media artists, Ritchie’s interactive works originates from his invented meta-narratives, and are then coded into the online database.
; the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston
; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami; MASS MoCA; the SFMoMA; The Guggenheim, and the MoMA, among others. His work has also been a part of the 1997 Whitney Biennial, the 2002 Sydney Biennale, and the 2004 São Paulo Art Biennial
.
Ritchie has also been involved in over 100 group exhibitions since 1990 at an international level.
The Andrea Rosen Gallery, located at 525 West 24th Street in New York City, currently represents Ritchie.
The Andrea Rosen Gallery represents other well-established artists such as Walker Evans
, Felix Gonzalez-Torres
, John Currin
, and Wolfgang Tillmans
. Ritchie currently lives and works in New York City
.
Minimalism
Minimalism describes movements in various forms of art and design, especially visual art and music, where the work is set out to expose the essence, essentials or identity of a subject through eliminating all non-essential forms, features or concepts...
influence.
Ritchie's art revolves around a personal mythology
Mythology
The term mythology can refer either to the study of myths, or to a body or collection of myths. As examples, comparative mythology is the study of connections between myths from different cultures, whereas Greek mythology is the body of myths from ancient Greece...
drawn from creation myths, particle physics
Particle physics
Particle physics is a branch of physics that studies the existence and interactions of particles that are the constituents of what is usually referred to as matter or radiation. In current understanding, particles are excitations of quantum fields and interact following their dynamics...
, thermodynamics
Thermodynamics
Thermodynamics is a physical science that studies the effects on material bodies, and on radiation in regions of space, of transfer of heat and of work done on or by the bodies or radiation...
, and games of chance, among other elements.
Ritchie is married to Garland Hunter, an artist and actress who appeared in The Tao of Steve
The Tao of Steve
The Tao of Steve is a 2000 romantic comedy film written by Duncan North, Greer Goodman, and Jenniphr Goodman. It is directed by Jenniphr Goodman and stars Donal Logue and Greer Goodman....
.
Education and early career
Matthew Ritchie was born in the suburbs of LondonLondon
London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...
, England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
in 1964. Ritchie received his BFA from London’s Camberwell School of Art, in the years of 1983-86. He also spent a year enrolled at Boston University
Boston University
Boston University is a private research university located in Boston, Massachusetts. With more than 4,000 faculty members and more than 31,000 students, Boston University is one of the largest private universities in the United States and one of Boston's largest employers...
in Boston, Massachusetts, in 1982. Ritchie has established himself in the contemporary fine arts scene since the early 90s, and had his first group exhibition in 1990 at the Judy Nielsen Gallery in Chicago, Illinois. Ritchie’s first solo show, “Working Model,” was shown in New York’s Basilico Fine Arts from February 18-March 18 in 1995. This series of paintings, wall drawings, and sculptures introduced Ritchie into the contemporary genre as an artist who “brought together historically and ideologically different belief systems in an attempt to show their common thread.” .”. Regardless of the medium or material Ritchie uses, all of his work collaborates into a complex meta-narrative structure.
Art Process
Ritchie is often seen foremost as a painterPainting
Painting is the practice of applying paint, pigment, color or other medium to a surface . The application of the medium is commonly applied to the base with a brush but other objects can be used. In art, the term painting describes both the act and the result of the action. However, painting is...
, but his work lies mainly in drawing. Ritchie scans his drawings into the computer so he can manipulate them by blowing them up, deconstructing them, and/or transforming them into three-dimensional pieces. He digitally makes his images smaller and larger in order to further develop his ideas beyond paper. In an interview with Art: 21, Ritchie explains his drawing process here: “I start with a collection of ideas...and I draw out all these different motifs, and then I lay them on top of each other. So I have piles of semi-transparent drawings all layered on top of each other in my studio and they form a kind of tunnel of information. Out of that, you can pull this form that turns into the sculpture or the painting. It’s literally like pulling the narrative
Narrative
A narrative is a constructive format that describes a sequence of non-fictional or fictional events. The word derives from the Latin verb narrare, "to recount", and is related to the adjective gnarus, "knowing" or "skilled"...
out of overlaying all of the structures. That’s how I end up with this structure. It’s derived from a series of drawings that I scan into the computer and refine through various processes...and send to the sheet-metal shop down the road where it’s cut out of metal and assembled into larger structures which are too big for my studio.” This method allows Ritchie to reshape his images into sculptures, floor-to-wall installations, interactive web sites, and short stories.
Art-Making Philosophy
Ritchie draws from numerous meta-narratives that explore religionReligion
Religion is a collection of cultural systems, belief systems, and worldviews that establishes symbols that relate humanity to spirituality and, sometimes, to moral values. Many religions have narratives, symbols, traditions and sacred histories that are intended to give meaning to life or to...
, philosophy
Philosophy
Philosophy is the study of general and fundamental problems, such as those connected with existence, knowledge, values, reason, mind, and language. Philosophy is distinguished from other ways of addressing such problems by its critical, generally systematic approach and its reliance on rational...
, and science
Science
Science is a systematic enterprise that builds and organizes knowledge in the form of testable explanations and predictions about the universe...
in order to create his complicated, yet freshly simple works. “Influenced by everything from the mythic escapades of comic-book superheroes and pagan gods to the meta-narratives of philosophy, religion, and science, Ritchie has developed a mythical narrative or cosmology of his own, and his art is communicated via a variety of art spaces and installations, including galleries throughout the world and the World Wide Web.” In an interview with Art: 21, Ritchie states that he reads Nature Magazine, which is a weekly journal that publishes technical articles about contemporary scientific findings. Ritchie’s pieces have a scientific nature to them, but do not solely represent scientific agenda. Instead, his work investigates the role of science within society, creating a narrative between order and chaos. In Ritchie’s Art: 21 interviews, he explains his interest in science as “a way of having a conversation that’s based on an idea of looking at things than I am in the rhetoric around science.” In other words, Ritchie is not trying to depict scientific data accurately. He uses his research in order to find topics that are important to him, to which he then illustrates in his work. Ritchie’s work tends to include various references that expand into a comprehensive explanation historical experience or knowledge. His meta-narratives combine all of the philosophies that interest him, and place them into a structure of information that can be bombarding, but seem to be able to go on endlessly. His work deals with the theme of information. Ritchie explains this theme with a few rhetorical questions and statements: “…for me the theme of my new structure was information, how do you deal with it? As a person is it possible for you to grasp everything and see everything? You’re presented with everything and all through your life you’re trying to filter out, you’re really just trying to control that flow.” These questions posed by Ritchie rightfully describe his thought process while creating his art
Art
Art is the product or process of deliberately arranging items in a way that influences and affects one or more of the senses, emotions, and intellect....
, allowing the viewer to better understand his pieces beyond their aesthetic characteristics.
Interactive Work
Aside from the artist’s galleryArt gallery
An art gallery or art museum is a building or space for the exhibition of art, usually visual art.Museums can be public or private, but what distinguishes a museum is the ownership of a collection...
work, Ritchie’s investigation of New Media
New media
New media is a broad term in media studies that emerged in the latter part of the 20th century. For example, new media holds out a possibility of on-demand access to content any time, anywhere, on any digital device, as well as interactive user feedback, creative participation and community...
has further developed his universal narrative into the interactive realm. In 2001, Ritchie was commissioned by the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art
The San Francisco Museum of Modern Art is a modern art museum located in San Francisco, California. A nonprofit organization, SFMOMA holds an internationally recognized collection of modern and contemporary art and was the first museum on the West Coast devoted solely to 20th century art...
to be a part of e.space, which was created to examine art forms that can only exist on the World Wide Web. Ritchie, along with six other artists: Erik Adigard
Erik Adigard
Erik Adigard des Gautries is a communication designer and media artist based in the San Francisco Bay Area. He was born in Brazzaville, Congo and schooled in Paris, France...
, Lynn Hershman, Yael Kanarek
Yael Kanarek
Yael Kanarek is an artist based in New York City.Kanarek has been developing an integrated media project called since 1995. At the core of World of Awe is “The Journal”—an original narrative that uses the ancient genre of the traveler's tale to explore connections between storytelling, travel,...
, Mark Napier
Mark Napier (artist)
Mark Napier is an early pioneer of net.art in the United States, known for creating interactive online artwork that challenged traditional definitions of art...
, Thomson & Craighead
Thomson & Craighead
Jon Thomson and Alison Craighead are London-based visual artists, who work with video, sound and the internet.-Life and work:Jon Thomson was born in London, England and Alison Craighead in Aberdeen, Scotland....
, and Julia Scher
Julia Scher
Julia Scher is an American artist who works primarily with themes of surveillance. She uses a variety of mediums and is most known for her installation art and performance art works. Her work addresses issues of control and seduction....
, created stories that could only be told through the computer screen. Before his collaboration with the SFMOMA, Ritchie developed his first interactive piece in 1996 with the help of äda 'web, a research and development platform that services artists in order to create online interactive projects. In his piece titled, The Hard Way, Ritchie combines several of his previous projects into an interactive site that allow the viewer to navigate through the website, experiencing the narrative by following Ritchie’s imagined avatars that represent infamous personality traits that can be found throughout our own history. Through his text, drawings, and computer-animated realms, The Hard Way serves as a prequel to his piece with the SFMOMA, titled, The New Place. The New Place was created in 2001, and is entwined with Ritchie’s larger project, Proposition Player. The New Place includes mediums outside the web, using sculpture, painting, computer games, and other forms that are not yet defined in this “very large cross-media plan,” serving as a trailer of sorts, previewing things to come. The Proposition Player was created in 2003 for the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art. This piece explores Ritchie’s thoughts on gambling and quantum mechanics, and the illusions that come along with the elements of chance and risk. Ritchie explains the motive behind this piece here in his 2005 interview with Art: 21: “It’s about the idea that in the moment between placing your bet and the result of the bet there is a kind of infinite freedom because all the possibilities are there. "You may already be a winner!" It’s fantastic—you’re like a god! Everything opens up.” This exhibition asked the audience to take part, and “play” Ritchie’s invented game. Visitors were given a playing card by the exhibition guard, in which they would use to take part within Ritchie’s proposition game. Outside of the exhibition’s context, these cards could function as a usable deck of cards, since hey attribute all of the traditional suits, even including the joker
Joker (playing card)
Joker is a special type of playing card found in most modern decks, or else a type of tile in some Mahjong game sets.-Name:It is believed that the term "Joker" comes from a mispronunciation of Jucker, the German/Alsatian name for the game Euchre. The card was originally introduced in about 1860 for...
. But in Ritchie’s context, each card symbolized one of the 49 characteristics that Ritchie used to create a story that described the evolution of the entire universe.
Historical Context
The compositions of Ritchie’s works reference the Expressionist artists at the start of the 20th-century, but differ from his predecessors in their tightness and linearity. His abstracted narrative work fits into the same category of the work of contemporary artists such as Matthew BarneyMatthew Barney
Matthew Barney is an American artist who works in sculpture, photography, drawing and film. His early works were sculptural installations combined with performance and video...
and Bonnie Collura. Like these two artists, Ritchie draws upon philosophical, religious, and scientific narratives to create a complex universe where these theories can be circulated amongst one another. In these artists’ works, webs of data are formed in artistic compositions that reference the questions that society continues to base their meaning of existence on. Ritchie’s work personifies these questions into art.
Connection with New Media
Ritchie’s interactive work is linked to the forerunners of New MediaNew media
New media is a broad term in media studies that emerged in the latter part of the 20th century. For example, new media holds out a possibility of on-demand access to content any time, anywhere, on any digital device, as well as interactive user feedback, creative participation and community...
, which began to take shape as an art form in the late 1980s. New Media manipulates the medium of digital art
Digital art
Digital art is a general term for a range of artistic works and practices that use digital technology as an essential part of the creative and/or presentation process...
, and uses the technology itself as the medium. Through the writings of individuals such as Lev Manovich
Lev Manovich
Lev Manovich is an author of new media books, professor of Visual Arts, University of California, San Diego, U.S. and European Graduate School in Saas-Fee, Switzerland, where he teaches new media art and theory, software studies, and digital humanities...
, Marshall McLuhan
Marshall McLuhan
Herbert Marshall McLuhan, CC was a Canadian educator, philosopher, and scholar—a professor of English literature, a literary critic, a rhetorician, and a communication theorist...
, and Roy Ascott
Roy Ascott
Roy Ascott is a British artist and theorist, who works with cybernetics and telematics. He is President of the Planetary Collegium.- Biography :...
, New Media
New media
New media is a broad term in media studies that emerged in the latter part of the 20th century. For example, new media holds out a possibility of on-demand access to content any time, anywhere, on any digital device, as well as interactive user feedback, creative participation and community...
has been defined, and allotted for artists such as Ritchie to explore and create within the realm of interactive art
Interactive art
Interactive art is a form of installation-based art that involves the spectator in a way that allows the art to achieve its purpose. Some installations achieve this by letting the observer or visitor "walk" in, on, and around them; Some others ask the artist to become part of the artwork.Works of...
.
The interaction between online databases and meta-narrative structures are discussed in Christiane Paul’s 2004 essay, The Database
Database
A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...
as System and Cultural Form: Anatomies of Cultural Narratives. This essay sheds further light on meta-narrative structure within the premise of New Media. Paul describes this connection here: “databases do lend themselves to a categorization of information and narratives that can then be filtered to create meta-narratives about the construction and cultural specifics of the original material.”. Similar to past New Media artists, Ritchie’s interactive works originates from his invented meta-narratives, and are then coded into the online database.
Major Exhibitions
Ritchie has had over twenty-five solo exhibitions throughout his career. His first solo show was in 1995, at the Basilico Fine Arts in New York, New York. Ritchie’s work has been exhibited at the Dallas Museum of ArtDallas Museum of Art
The Dallas Museum of Art is a major art museum located in the Arts District of downtown Dallas, Texas, USA, along Woodall Rodgers Freeway between St. Paul and Harwood. In 1984, the museum moved from its previous location in Fair Park to the Arts District, Dallas, Texas...
; the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston
Contemporary Arts Museum Houston
The Contemporary Arts Museum – Houston is a not-for-profit institution in Houston, Texas, dedicated to presenting the contemporary art of our time to the public....
; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Miami; MASS MoCA; the SFMoMA; The Guggenheim, and the MoMA, among others. His work has also been a part of the 1997 Whitney Biennial, the 2002 Sydney Biennale, and the 2004 São Paulo Art Biennial
São Paulo Art Biennial
The São Paulo Art Biennial was founded in 1951 and has been held every two years since. It is the second oldest art biennial in the world after the Venice Biennial , which serves as its role model....
.
Ritchie has also been involved in over 100 group exhibitions since 1990 at an international level.
The Andrea Rosen Gallery, located at 525 West 24th Street in New York City, currently represents Ritchie.
The Andrea Rosen Gallery represents other well-established artists such as Walker Evans
Walker Evans
Walker Evans was an American photographer best known for his work for the Farm Security Administration documenting the effects of the Great Depression. Much of Evans's work from the FSA period uses the large-format, 8x10-inch camera...
, Felix Gonzalez-Torres
Félix González-Torres
Felix Gonzalez-Torres was an American, Cuban-born visual artist."For Felix it was much more powerful to assume that the gay and straight audience was the same audience, that being a Cuban-born American is the same as being an American. And being American was something he was extremely proud of."...
, John Currin
John Currin
John Currin is an American painter. He is best known for satirical figurative paintings which deal with provocative sexual and social themes in a technically skillful manner. His work shows a wide range of influences, including sources as diverse as the Renaissance, popular culture magazines, and...
, and Wolfgang Tillmans
Wolfgang Tillmans
Wolfgang Tillmans is a German Fine-art photographer and artist. His comprehensive and diverse body of work is distinguished by observation of his surroundings and an ongoing investigation of the photographic medium’s foundations. In 2000, Tillmans was the first photographer and also the first...
. Ritchie currently lives and works in New York City
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
.
External links
- Ritchie's website
- Biography, interviews, essays, artwork images and video clips from PBSPublic Broadcasting ServiceThe Public Broadcasting Service is an American non-profit public broadcasting television network with 354 member TV stations in the United States which hold collective ownership. Its headquarters is in Arlington, Virginia....
series Art:21 -- Art in the Twenty-First Century - Season 3 (2005). - AskArt Entry
- Interview
- Boston Globe profile