12-02-2016
The exhibition could just as easily have been called the whole world of Olaf Mooij. This world revealed itself to me a few days before the opening. In previous exhibitions I was closely involved with the realization of the exhibition from the very beginning right through to the opening. I have been very busy recently, but having seen the work and having met Olaf, I had complete faith in it. Olaf just walks his own path, makes his own work in his own way, in his own world. How surprised I was when I walked upstairs and saw these pieces together. This good feeling transformed into an understanding of his world. Suddenly there are music machines and mobiles alongside each other and together. The embryonic cars in formaldehyde on a giant table, and the flat car body sculptures on the wall that are reminiscent of African masks, and of course our DAF that collapsed under the weight of the enormous number of boxes piled on top of it. Olaf solved this by replacing the springs. Our DAF is probably the only Jeep Renegade with springs! All this comes together as the result of the imaginings of an idiosyncratic artist who has been working quietly yet passionately on his oeuvre for decades. This whole world seems to have found a natural place in our gallery. And to be honest, it is a great experience to be so surprised by an exhibition, or rather by an artist, in your own gallery no less.
Photography: Thomas Mayer
In every exhibition, the artist chooses work from the collection of the Van Abbemuseum to be placed in the Van Abbe vitrine. It is quite a remarkable phenomenon that we’ve been doing this for the past five years. It says a great deal about the openness of the Van Abbe and the progressive way in which it has vested itself in a central position within the community. Olaf was thus also able to choose a piece and found in the Van Abbe collection a work by Jean Tinguely, whose retrospective exhibition once inspired him to become an artist himself. As well as Tinguely, Panamarenko is also a source of inspiration but his work is not displayed in the Van Abbe vitrine. We have a real Tinguely in the house. And when you press the red button it works too!
This post is also available in: NL
« Back to blog