JAMES RIZZI

Colorful and spirited, James Rizzi’s work displays the artist’s fascination with contemporary urban themes. His three-dimensional constructions have been acclaimed for their bold and detailed portrayals of everyday people and places. Whether enjoying a night on the town, sweating out rush hour on the highway or simply enjoying the changing seasons amidst the urban landscape, James Rizzi’s friends and neighbors face life’s joys and challenges with irrepressible optimism and humor.

Born in Brooklyn, New York James Rizzi studied art at the University of Florida ( Gainesville) where he began experimenting with painting, printmaking and sculpting. His goal was to combine all three techniques in his work, an aim finally realized in his now well-known 3-D constructions. Duplicate images, carefully cut out and attached, each one above its counterpart, create richly textured editions through a truly striking use of traditional printmaking techniques. In his painting as well, James Rizzi often makes three-dimensional images, many of which incorporate moveable magnetic elements.

Since his 1974 debut in The Brooklyn Museum’s ongoing series of print exhibitions, James Rizzi has been honored with one-person shows throughout the United States, Europe and Asia. A major retrospective exhibit of his work opened in March 1996 at the International Olympic Museum, Lausanne, Switzerland. Several additional museum exhibitions took place in 1996, including the University of Florida ( Gainesville, Florida), Palm Beach Community College ( Florida), Hakone Open Air Museum ( Hakone, Japan) and the Pusan Hyundai Art Gallery ( Seoul, Korea). Major exhibits in 1997 included the Center for the Arts ( Vero Beach, Florida) and the Kunst Museum Limburg ( Limburg, Germany).

In addition, James Rizzi has designed record album covers, CD’s, stage sets, animated videos for the rock group The Tom Tom Club, and was the subject of four films produced for Japanese TV in 1987, 1994, 1996 and 1997. Two major books were published in 1988 and 1992 about James Rizzi’s art and life in the United States. In the spring of 1996, the International Olympic Museum released the James Rizzi catalogue, Dreams of Sport, with foreword by Juan Antonio Samaranch, President of the International Olympic Committee, and text by George Plimpton. Two more publications in 1996 were The New York Paintings published by Prestel-Verlag, Germany, and James Rizzi - Mein New York Kochbuch, Rezepte von Peter Bührer published by Mary Hahn Verlag, Germany. This was followed by another Mary Hahn Verlag publication in 1997, Christmas Cooking in New York. Other accomplishments in 1996 included Lufthansa Airlines’ unveiling of the Boeing 757 aircraft which James Rizzi was commissioned to design in celebration of the 40th anniversary of their subsidiary Condor Airlines. James Rizzi was commissioned to create a series of paintings commemorating the Opening Ceremonies of the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, and was selected to create images incorporating the sports included in the 1998 Winter Olympics in Nagano, Japan. In February 1998 he was interviewed on WNBC-TV Weekend Today In New York to discuss his technique and his Olympic prints.