2004
Re-nacimiento
Casa Góngora — Panama City
Solo exhibition of 12 photographs interpreting the human body and nature through layered photographic composition.
JJ Ribi
Jean Jaques Ribi · Visual Artist · b. 1975, Italy
JJ Ribi (Jean Jaques Ribi) is an Italian-born visual artist of Swiss and Panamanian heritage whose practice has developed across Europe, Latin America and Southeast Asia. Working as a visual composer, he constructs images through the recombination of photography, drawing, digital media, artificial intelligence and found visual material, assembling fragments from multiple realities into complex visual ecosystems that operate between myth, memory, technology and perception.
Active internationally since the early 2000s, JJ Ribi has exhibited in museums, biennials, galleries and art fairs across the Americas and Europe — including the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Panamá, the Museum of Latin American Art in Los Angeles, and the Bienal de Artes Visuales del Istmo Centroamericano. His work has been covered by ArtNexus magazine and by major press in Panama, Switzerland and the United States.
Exhibition History 2004–2023
2008
BAVIC VI — Sixth Visual Arts Biennial of the Central American Isthmus
Museo Nacional de Identidad (MIN) — Tegucigalpa
Selected as one of six Panamanian artists representing Panama. 72 works by 36 artists from six countries.
2009
Auction 09 — Contemporary Latin American Art
Museum of Latin American Art (MOLAA) — Long Beach
Sandman / Hombre de arena (2008), manipulated photography on paper, ed. 3/5, 44 × 33 in., Lot 49.
2009
Houston Art Fair
Houston Art Fair — Houston
Represented by The Americas Collection.
2010
Exhibition at MAC Panamá
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (MAC) — Panama City
Group exhibition, confirmed by institutional letter from the Executive Director.
2011
00–10: Cuenta Progresiva. Arte de la primera década del siglo XXI en Panamá
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (MAC) — Panama City
Institutional survey of the 23 most significant Panamanian artists of the first decade of the 21st century.
2011
Fotoseptiembre
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo (MAC) — Panama City
Collective photography exhibition alongside Ellen Sandor and Sergio Veranes.
2011
Exhibition at Galería Arteconsult
Galería Arteconsult — Panama City
Leading contemporary gallery in Panama.
2012
The Americas Collection — 20th Anniversary Exhibition
The Americas Collection — Miami
Group exhibition.
2013
ArtSpot + Spectrum Miami
ArtSpot + Spectrum — Miami
Major satellite fair during Miami Art Week.
2018
Velocità è Bellezza
TAG Art Gallery — Lugano
Solo exhibition exploring speed, beauty and mechanical form.
2023
Tokenized
The Americas Collection — Coral Gables
Solo exhibition on digital art, NFT technology and compositional practice.
Current Cycle
2026
The Impermanent Body — A Theory of Field Integration
Closed exhibition cycle · available for exhibition and collector placement
A closed cycle of nine large-scale photopaint works, including one triptych, conceived for large-format presentation and adaptable to the scale of the exhibition space. Restricted edition of 3 plus one artist proof; each work accompanied by a signed Certificate of Authenticity. The works hold the human image at the moment it blooms, when the self appears as a temporary phenomenon of its surroundings — identity gathering into form, figures rising, peaking, and dissolving back into the whole.
Bodies of Work — The Elemental Poles
The practice is organised not by style or subject but by frequency. Each Pole is a gravitational ecosystem in which archetypes take form, carrying its own myth and its own pulse. The constant ritual across all of them: disassemble, recompose, transcend.
- PR1M0 — the flesh and the earth; the body as vessel, ancestry inscribed, a totem of the first oath.
- FLUX — worlds collapsing, myths recombined; entropy as renewal, fragments reassembling into new constellations.
- ICON — masks and mirrors; identity hardened into ritual, surface charged as sign.
- ARIA — breath collapsed into form; the invisible tuned into presence, silence transmuted into symbol.
Institutional Attestation
2013
Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Panamá
Letter of attestation · Lizi Rodríguez, Executive Director · 14 June 2013
Formal institutional letter confirming JJ Ribi's participation in two exhibitions at MAC Panamá, in 2010 and 2011, and describing his work as a Panamanian photographer and digital artist focused on the ethnic dimensions of Panamanian originary cultures — addressing traditional subjects through a contemporary lens. The Director concludes that Jean Jacques Ribi represents Panamanian culture through his work.
Work in Museum Auction
2009
Sandman / Hombre de arena
Lot 49 · Auction 09 · Museum of Latin American Art, Long Beach, California
Manipulated photography on paper, 2008, edition 3/5, 44 × 33 in. (111.7 × 83.8 cm). Courtesy of The Americas Collection. Estimate $3,000–$5,000. Exhibited in the MOLAA galleries 5 September – 16 October 2009, with the auction held 17 October 2009. The catalogue of participating artists included José Bedia, José Luis Cuevas, Rafael Coronel and Vladimir Cora, with works by Wifredo Lam, Roberto Matta and Rufino Tamayo offered in the same sale.
Press & Publications
- Renacimiento de Ribi — La Prensa Panamá, 2007-12
- Multiple Identities: The Sixth Central American Isthmus Biennial — ArtNexus, 2009
- Década de arte — La Prensa Panamá, 2011-01
- Vive el Arte — Día a Día Panamá, 2011-10
- Cento Strati Fotografia: Intervista Jean Jacques Ribi — Ticino Live, 2025-04-05
Gallery Representation
- The Americas Collection — Coral Gables, US
- Weil Art Gallery — Panama City, PA
- TAG Art Gallery — Lugano, CH
Name
The artist's legal name is registered under Swiss law as Jean Jaques Ribi. Exhibition records, museum catalogues and press published before the change — including the MOLAA Auction 09 catalogue (2009), ArtNexus Issue 72 (2009) and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Panamá letter of attestation (2013) — appear under the earlier spelling Jean Jacques Ribi. Both refer to the same artist.