WILLEM DE ROOIJ – LEGAL NOSES
2015-08-03Known for working in a variety of different media, including film, installation, sculpture, weaving, and exhibition making, de Rooij has developed a stringently precise practice, which addresses some of the most fundamental components of art making, such as meaning, color, authorship, labor, and time. Yet for all its conceptual rigor, apparent elegance and self-referential concision, his work is full of play, encouraging and ultimately engaging issues of interpretation, from the political to the social as well as the aesthetic (the title of the show, for instance, like many of the artist’s shows, is an anagram). Functioning predominantly through protocol, de Rooij’s work is often developed in collaboration with artisanal specialists– in the case of this exhibition, finishers, weavers and a florist– making it such that aesthetic decision-making is depersonalized and outsourced to a co-producer. He essentially liquidates the so-called personal touch of the artist, making every effort he can to distribute not only the production, but also, and even more importantly meaning as broadly as possible. And while virtually every aspect of de Rooij’s production is conceptually and pragmatically accounted for, nothing, paradoxically, is closed or shut down– everything is left wide open.
Opposite – Gemischt gross, horizontal, 2015
Exhibition runs through to August 9th, 2015
Regen Projects
6750 Santa Monica Boulevard
CA 90038
Los Angeles
