For the past two decades, Ricci Albenda has performed an investigation into language, exploring the ways in which the written word is simultaneously a visual, personal, communal, and intellectual entity. Simultaneously, Albenda has also developed his own system in which alphabetical and numerical systems are paired with the colour wheel: Vowels fall onto the archetypal hues of the prismatic ROYGBIV spectrum: a = Red, e = Orange, i = Yellow, o = Green, u = Blue, and y finds itself between Indigo and Violet. Numerals occupy the magenta tones, connecting the end of the alphabet with its beginning to form a complete colour wheel. Within these investigations, each work becomes its own framework and site of inquiry, demonstrating versatility, and most importantly, the sense of play inherent to studio practice. Ricci Albenda’s work was recently the subject of an exhibition at T'Space, Rhinebeck. Albenda has been exhibited extensively, both in the United States and abroad at venues including: The Guggenheim Museum, New York, The Rachofsky House, Dallas, Tel Aviv Museum of Art, Tel Aviv, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, Brooklyn Museum of Art, Brooklyn, Castello Di Rivoli, Turin, Museum of Modern Art, New York, MoMA PS1, Queens, Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris, and the New Museum, New York.
