Paul Ramirez Jonas


Paul Ramírez Jonas is an American artist and arts educator, who is known for contemporary, social practice art work exploring the potential between artist and audience, artwork and public. Many of Ramirez Jonas's projects use pre-existing texts, models, or materials to reenact or prompt actions and reinsert himself into his own audience.
His work has participated in the Johannesburg Biennale, the Seoul Biennial, the Shanghai Biennial, the 28th São Paulo Biennial, the 53rd Venice Biennale, and the 7th Bienal do Mercosul, Porto Alegre, Brazil. Ramírez Jonas currently lives in Brooklyn, New York.

Early life and education

Paul Ramírez Jonas was born in 1965 in Pomona, California and raised in Honduras. In 1987, Ramirez Jonas graduated with a B.A. from Brown University, and went on to earn an M.F.A. in painting from the Rhode Island School of Design in 1989.

Career

Shortly after receiving his Master’s Degree, Ramírez Jonas began exhibiting his work in New York in 1990. From the 1990-2004, Ramírez Jonas was primarily known for producing artworks that utilized a wide array of media for display in galleries. For example, he was recognized for a series of sculptures where he recreated historical kite designs for the experiments of Alexander Graham Bell and other inventors. It should be acknowledged that in this period his practice was not limited to only gallery exhibitions but included performance that interacted with audience members. In 1991, in collaboration with fellow artist Spencer Finch, the duo created an alternative audio tour of the Metropolitan Museum of Art, entitled Masterpieces Without the Director. However this format of presentation was an exception and much of his recognition in the 1990’s and into the 2000’s was in both in commercial and institutional gallery exhibitions. This period would culminate in a survey show in 2004 at Ikon Gallery in Birmingham, UK. This exhibition examined the early works of Ramírez Jonas and his exploration of technological progress as a backdrop to address concepts of time, memory and loss. Despite this emphasis, in the catalogue that accompanied the 2004 Ikon exhibition, editor Sofía Hernández Chong Cuy acknowledges the artist's growing interests in “public space”.
As the 2000’s progressed, Ramírez Jonas created public works to intimate drawings, performances and videos. Through his practice, he sought to challenge the definitions of art and the public and to engineer active audience participation and exchange. Ramírez Jonas described his role as "extending beyond the private reader, and into someone who invites viewers to join in. The result of this shift is the reassertion of a contract between the artwork and its public." In addition to conceiving public projects, both permanent and temporary, Ramírez Jonas was the subject of numerous solo exhibitions. He has participated in the 1st Johannesburg Biennale; the 1st Seoul Biennial; the 6th Shanghai Biennial; the 28th São Paulo Biennial and the 53rd Venice Biennial.
Since 2004, Ramírez Jonas' efforts were increasingly recognized as part of the fields of Social Practice and Socially Engaged Art. This “turn to the social” by many artists consisted of a wide ranging set artistic approaches that embraced art making strategies that were durational, participatory and cross disciplinary and that cultivated links between the aesthetic and political. Ramírez Jonas’ series of works that involved an exchange of keys with the audience had particular import for the field of socially engaged artists and thinkers. These projects were Mi Casa Su Casa produced in San Diego and Tijuana for inSite_05, Talisman produced in São Paulo for the 28th Bienal de São Paulo and Key to the City produced in New York City with Creative Time among others. Notably his work in this period, he distinguished himself by maintaining his position as the author of the work. Whereas other socially engaged artists sought to share or question the role of the author through collaborative production. Although Ramírez Jonas’ work was contingent on the audience enacting the work, he always maintained an investment in the production of art objects as exemplified in his series of projects that circulates keys. In considering these art objects, writer and curator Nato Thompson wrote that the keys, “Recontextualized, they offer opportunities for participants to contemplate a broader range of choices, possibilities, and social interactions.” With Ramírez Jonas’ interest in speech acts, citizenry and audience participation, his works embodied many of the concerns of socially engaged art. His approach described at times as a “MicroUtopia” for its capacity to temporarily engage the audience directly in small but exceptional acts that address large scale societal issues.
In 2018, the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston organized a comprehensive survey of Ramírez Jonas. This exhibition contextualized the gallery based work of the 1990’s with the later work of the 2000’s. In considering the artist’s evolution over the nearly three decades, the exhibition presented Ramírez Jonas’ oeuvre as possessing a distinct continuity.
His work is included in various public museum collections including the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, among others.

Work

''A Better Yesterday'' (1999)

In 1999, Ramirez Jonas produced a project entitled A Better Yesterday for the exhibition Panorama 2000 organized by the Centraal Museum in Utrecht. This work consisted of painting an analogue clock face on the pavement and buildings of the city center of Utrecht. Since this “clock” spanned a 200 meter diameter of the city center, it could only be viewed in total from the elevation of the Dom Tower, whereas at street level, pedestrians could only view individual numbers. Throughout the day, an attendant, pedaling a tricycle with a musical automaton aboard, would visit each number at the corresponding hour of the day. The mechanics and construction of the automaton was carefully formed to visually combine three references: the Dom Tower in Utrecht, Bruegel’s painted depiction of the Tower of Babel and Tatlin’s Tower. At the top of each hour the musical automaton would play a score that was a mix of the songs It's a Small World and L'Internationale. The project lasted the length of the exhibition from June 5 - October 3, 1999. The project was part of a large group show of artists making works that utilized the view of the Dom Tower.

''Talisman'' (2008)

In 2008, Ramírez Jonas produced the work Talisman for the 28th São Paulo Biennial. He arranged for members of the public to a receive a key to the front door of the biennial venue, the Ciccillo Matarazzo Pavilion. Each person who received a key was required to leave behind a copy of one of their own keys as well as sign a contract that established an agreement between themselves, the curators, the artist and the biennial foundation.

''Publicar'' Series (2009)

In this series of sculptures entitled Publicar, Ramírez Jonas altered large boulders by carving into them a space for monument plaques to be placed. In this carved out space where a bronze plaque would be placed to honor a State figure or event, the artist substituted a cork board that served as a repository for public fleeting messages or personal note- the ephemeral voice of his public. The first three of this series were produced for the 7th Mercosul Biennial in Porto Alegre, Brazil in 2009.

''Key to the City'' (2010)

In the summer of 2010, Ramírez Jonas created the Key to the City project in New York City with Creative Time and curator Nato Thompson. He replaced 24 locks around the city, so that they could all be opened with a new “key to the city.” Some of the keys opened simple spaces, and other opened complex interactions like participating in a restaurant. Key to the City involved 25,000 participants and centered around a key as a vehicle for exploring social contracts pertaining to trust, access, and belonging. Keys have featured repeatedly in his work as symbols of access and exclusion, public and private ownership. Keys were distributed until June 2010, and the locks remained accessible throughout the summer, until September 2010.

''The Commons'' (2011)

Within the Contemporary Arts Museum Houston sits Ramírez Jonas's piece called The Commons. Much like his 2009 boulder piece in Porto Alegre, Ramírez Jonas created a riderless horse made of cork for the purpose of allowing the public to use pushpins to leave notices to others. This piece was intentionally ephemeral so that those viewing and involving themselves with this artwork could watch it erode as the material deteriorated. "The Commons" is modeled after the bronze original of Marcus Aurelius atop his steed, Equestrian Statue of Marcus Aurelius, which is located in Campidoglio, Rome. Ramírez Jonas's detail of leaving the horse riderless was intended to give a significant gesture for displaying a horse with no direction -- meaning that, without the public, the piece is incomplete.
In 2017, The Commons was part of the exhibition Atlas, Plural, Monumental, a 25-year survey of the artist's work at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston .

''Public Trust'' (2016 – ongoing)

Public Trust was initially staged at three different public squares in Boston, Massachusetts in 2016. The work was a participatory installation which invited participants to consider the impact of their words.
In 2017, Public Trust was part of the exhibition Atlas, Plural, Monumental, a 25-year survey of the artist's work at Contemporary Arts Museum Houston.

Awards and honors

His honors include grants from the Joan Mitchell Foundation in 2008, ArtMatters Foundation in 2008 as support for his project Desahogo, the National Endowment for the Arts, the Howard Foundation, the International Studio Program in Sweden, and the Atlantic Center for the Arts, among others.

Teaching

Ramírez Jonas has taught at Rhode Island School of Design, California Institute of the Arts, Columbia University, New York University, and the School of the Museum of Fine Arts Boston. He is currently an Associate Professor at Hunter College, where he has been since 2007.

Personal life

Ramírez Jonas was married to artist Janine Antoni. The couple met while in graduate school at Rhode Island School of Design. They have a daughter and live in Brooklyn.

Exhibitions

These are lists of Ramirez Jonas's select exhibitions, organized by type of exhibition and date.

Solo