Chicago – Volume Gallery is pleased to announce Would Anything Be Without Everything Else, opening on January 11, 2019. This exhibition presents past work by RO/LU and current work by OOIEE.
“This feels like one of those times where we should really try to say something. A solid statement or historical perspective or… but that’s hard. So maybe we could set the tone for a moment through the words of others… establish a mood.
There’s a story we love about the artist Michael Krebber. Apparently, he only tells the first part of a joke. Never gives the punchline. Just leaves it hanging in the air. So amazing! Isn’t it? And on a related note, Jan Voerwort wrote “Jokes are like ghosts. You won’t know whether a joke is any good unless you make it. And you can’t be sure ghosts exist before you meet one. But if you do, you see.” We really like that too [:-) Ok. Thanks. We’re glad we did that. Now, here goes nothing…
We use words like “begin”, “end”, “start”, and “finish” freely, and often. But when thinking about them in relation to RO/LU and OOIEE, the two studios in this exhibition, they don’t really feel right. And in general, maybe we all have a habit of pretending or acting as if language works a lot better than it does… don’t we? That it’s “accurate”? But – in truth – we don’t even really know where these words we’re writing here, now, are coming from, much less what they mean or where they began. We used to think that we chose them. That we chose our thoughts. But that doesn’t really line up with our experience at all. They just seem to emerge. Usually fast… like a geyser. Bursts of energy and inspiration in motion, attempting to come to life through language. All shaped by messy skies of contexts and constellations of possibilities… balanced and supported by invisible stories we’ve memorized and repeat. So much of it is always humming in the background. Ready to be ready. Built from the real and the imagined. And it seems like it’s that way with anything if we look closely. I mean, sorry to make it all complicated… maybe this is a good spot to mention our friend Joseph Goldstein’s habit of saying “who knows?” with a big smile, eyes sparkling.
So when did RO/LU begin? Who can say? There are so many versions of “answers” to that question. So many people involved. So many inspirations and influences. So much time. Who designed all the work… and who made it? We could point toward a few of the correct answers: 1) everyone 2) who cares 3) and what does it matter? It just seems boring and misleading to say anything else. And we realize that might sound dismissive in a negative way and we don’t mean it like that at all. We have a huge smile on our face as we write! It feels exciting to let go of those old totally incomplete tropes. So then has RO/LU ended? No! I mean, we’re here now with these objects and ideas right? They’re alive and well, still becoming what they’re becoming. Us too! Each present moment is unique and new. And that’s hard to grasp but, maybe it’s similar to how the universe is expanding? We’re made from the past so, it’s not gone or back there… It’s just… over here. Like RO/LU and OOIEE!
Whew. That’s a lot to ponder. The universe, the present moment…. we are wondering if maybe it’s just too much? It feels sorta… almost embarrassing. So, let us try and explain it another way too. Ok?
Matt Olson likes to tell a story sometimes: “My first Instagram account” he says “was my bedroom wall in the late 70s when I was a young boy. It was covered with pictures clipped from magazines. Mostly tennis players and Studio 54. John McEnroe and Vitas Geraluitas with Andy Warhol. Bjorn Borg decked out in Fila, back when Italian tennis clothes seemed to be made from magic. Bianca Jagger arriving at Wimbledon with Ilie Nastase… her in a white pantsuit with giant shoulder pads and him wearing a tan raincoat over his adidas sweatsuit. I rearranged the pictures a lot. It drove my mom nuts because often, the masking tape would take a little chip of paint with it. The wall became pocked and textured with different colors from earlier paint jobs which emerged. The last day we lived in that house I went up to look at my empty room, crying, the wall was blank, smooth and repainted. I like to think that pocked wall and its repaired state was my first piece. I think back then I was sad because I thought it was gone but it’s obviously not. It’s alive in the here now. And it’s also there, in that house, under whatever paint is on top now! And in many ways, I’m basically doing the same things now.”
So like everything, RO/LU never really began or ended. OOIEE the same. They emerge. They have happened… and are happening. Becoming through their unbecoming. The sensation of start/finish is real, but it’s only true for a moment. And sensations are fleeting so what we’re really interested in is meaning. But that’s problematic too right? Deleuze might point toward the rhizome… Thich Nhat Hanh the clouds. RO/LU used the same title for many different works and shows “Everything Is Always Changing All Of The Time.” We were tempted to use it for this exhibition as well but decided “What Would Anything Be Without Everything Else?” was better. It is the title of a book they were invited to write a few years ago that never got “finished.”
When will it be finished? ¯_(ツ)_/¯ Who knows.”
– Matt Olson founded OOIEE and was the cofounder of RO/LU
OOIEE (Office Of Interior Establishing Exterior) is a trans-disciplinary studio that works on projects related to art, design, architecture, and landscape. They describe their approach to working as an “open practice”… based in the belief that the world makes us as much as we make it and thus, trusting the work that emerges, whether commissioned or self-initiated, is an act of poetic surrender that gives life to something that is easy to care about. Informed by a love of research and an interest in using art history and motion as primary materials, OOIEE participates in climates of knowledge with an open heart and is committed to intentions of generosity, kindness, and expansiveness in and around the work. The acronym OOIEE is pronounced WE and OUI and OIEE – in English, French, and Hawaiin so it also means us, yes and here. Three very important words.
Their work has been shown at the Aspen Art Museum, Etage Projects in Copenhagen, ANNEX at M+B Gallery in Los Angeles and co. in Minneapolis. Teaching is vital to their practice and they’ve been visiting artist at SCI-Arc, Cranbrook, SAIC (School Art Institute Chicago), SCAD (Savannah) and elsewhere. Matt Olson, the studio founder, teaches WeCoLab, an experimental workshop that happens in a gallery at the Weisman Art Museum, and XLAB (Toward a Trans-Disciplinary, Open Practice) in the School of Architecture at the University of Minnesota.
