Publik Universal Frxnd
Publik Universal Frxnd is an Amsterdam-based artist whose work explores the entanglement of body, machine, and nature. It considers industrialisation as the beginning of an apocalypse through which we are currently living. Taking a queer perspective on histories of labor, migration, and political instability, their recent installations, sculptures, and performances use music and sound as a way to invoke complex feelings of belonging, joy, abjection, and hopelessness.
Fomerly known as Richard John Jones, the change of name to Publik Universal Frxnd is an attempt to de-centre their identity, questioning the nature of authenticity and subjectivity in an era of capitalised identities. The name is borrowed from a historical figure when Jemima Wilkinson became the Public Universal Friend in 1776. This change performs a personal and social unbecoming, influenced by the artist’s Quaker upbringing and family history. Just as for Jemima, this transformation is perhaps also an instrument to go beyond the limited imagination and perspective of one’s own specific subject position. The Publik Universal Frxnd could be considered a movement in time towards an undoing of the self. After all, like many people at the moment, they haven’t been feeling themselves lately.
They have exhibited at ROZENSTRAAT - a rose is a rose is a rose, the Beetsterzwaag Triennale, IMMA Dublin, MAMM Medellin, and the Gwangju Biennial (icw AA Bronson). Their work is supported by the Mondriaan Fonds. They have participated in international residencies at Centrale Fies, Italy, Bar Projects, Barcelona, IMMA, Dublin. Their monograph Paraperformance was published by Immixtion Press and Kunsthal Aarhus in 2018.