James Webb is a conceptual artist known for his site-specific interventions and installations. His practice often involves sound, found objects, and text, invoking references to literature, cinema, and the minimalist traditions.

Webb’s projects circulate around a complex mixture of emotional and affective states—of longing and despair, of ecstasy and of hopefulness, states of bodies and minds that move throughout his practice to raise questions of individuality and community, belonging and displacement, fragmentation and recuperation. By shifting objects, techniques, and forms beyond their original contexts and introducing them to different environments, Webb creates new spaces of tension. These spaces link together Webb’s academic back­ground in religion, theatre, and advertising, offering po­etic inquiries into the economies of belief and dynamics of communication in our contemporary world.

Webb’s solo exhibitions include the Art Institute of Chicago, USA (2018); SPACES, Cleveland, USA (2018); Norrtälje Konsthall, Norrtälje, Sweden (2018); Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, UK (2016); Hordaland Kunstsenter, Bergen, Norway (2015); Cen­troCentro, Madrid, Spain (2013); Johannesburg Art Gallery, Johannesburg, South Africa (2012); and mac, Birmingham, UK (2010).

Major group exhibitions include the 13th Biennial of Dakar (2018), 4th Prospect Triennial of New Orleans (2017), Documenta 14 (2017), 13th Biennial of Sharjah (2017), 12th Bienal de la Habana (2015), 55th Biennale di Venezia (2013), 3rd Marrakech Biennale (2009), Melbourne International Arts Festival (2009), and the 8th Biennale d’Art Contemporain de Lyon (2007). Other notable group shows include those at spaces such as Wanås Konst and Historiska, Sweden; MAXXI Roma, Italy; Darat al Funun, Jordan; Théâtre Graslin, France; and the Tate Modern, London.

Webb’s work has been acquired for numerous local and international public and private collections, and his projects have been the subject of the two monographs, entitled “. . .” (blank projects, 2020) and Xenagogue (Hordaland Kunstsenter, 2015).