Philip Ringler
- Jul 18
- 3 min read
Philip Ringler is a conceptual photographer who has exhibited across the United States and internationally in China, Spain, Scotland, Italy, and Hungary. Notable exhibitions have included solo shows at Starlight River Gallery in Shanghai and Gallery 1 in Guangzhou, China as well as collective features at the Asian Contemporary Art Association in Hayward, California, Florida Museum of Photographic Arts in Tampa, and PH21 Gallery in Budapest. Philip has been published by the periodical Insights Of An Eco Artist and several photo books through Ringworm Press.
The conceptual photography of Philip Ringler utilizes strategic props, actors, and documentary to highlight cultural absurdity, dystopia, and instill a sense of witty cynicism. He also creates moving-images, such as bombastically exploding cakes in (((Happy Birthday))), which essentially exemplifies tension and anticipation, in collaboration with James Saxon. Some of Philip’s most notable series include My Family, This Exhibit Is Closed, Start Smiling, and It Is My Party, Too. Throughout his portfolio, we will find a thorough cultural critique and institutional criticism, especially in the My Family series.
In My Family, the artist uses provocative practices of placing inflatable symbolic guns at controversial locations. My Family entails carefully-staged theatrical scenes of inflatable guns as ‘actors’ alluding to excessive gun culture and violence in American society, most notably, Philip Ringler will place these ‘guns’ in places such as a classroom, a school playground, a church, a cemetery, and a bedroom. The inflatable guns are set up as if they are interacting each other with human behavior, such as curling up in a bed covered in sheets with a recently opened book, or sitting in chairs and benches on a classroom or church. Such social commentary exemplifies Philip Ringler’s overall approach of applying critical narratives to environments through props which are placed like carefully-choreographed actors instilling a relevant sociological dynamic on topics of ironic despair, such as endless and obsessive amount of gun culture embedded throughout American society.
In a series such as This Exhibit Is Closed, the artist combines documentary photography with conceptual implications. Philip Ringler deliberately chooses to photograph dilapidated and out-of-operation exhibits at animal and aquatic zoos as well as amusement parks. As a result, these photographs portray a bleak, post-apocalyptic aesthetic full of urban-nihilism and civilization despair. The sense of isolation and unnerving sorrow in these meticulously-chosen scenes and compositions portray a profound sense of structural abandonment and has connotations with ecological and sociological neglect.
With the Start Smiling and It Is My Party, Too series, Philip Ringler specifically uses lucid actors with quirky features, characteristics, and wardrobe to engage in absurd behavior. These actors are ironically dressed in stained low-quality cropped shirts and underwear or a tacky suit, conveying a disheveled status with their character. In Start Smiling, the most notable photograph from this series entails a half-naked female performer (Cat Sweet) in dilapidated underwear holding a limping inflatable gun, directly alluding to the My Family series. Such an innuendo has provocatively erotic suggestions entailing the ‘powered’ symbolism and masculine-criticism of American gun culture. It Is My Party, Too also cleverly reflects cinder blocks and other industrial symbols, in collaboration with James Saxon, lit up as a birthday cake with the male actor ominously staring at the viewer as if trying to communicate his discomfort with the absurdity of the various situations, repeated as if this were the film Groundhogs Day.
Containing clever social commentary and cultural / institutional criticism, the conceptual photographs of Philip Ringler reveal the sociological implications and consequences of collective neglect and abandonment, such as overt-obsession with guns throughout every aspect of American society. His thoroughly provocative and experimental approach conveys a poignant variety in revealing the sinister underbelly of civilizational decline and social collapse. Through performative actions, socially-infused symbolic props, and strategic scene selection, Philip Ringler applies a complex psychological and sociological commentary to the lens-based arts with purposeful impact.
