out of order
Gyz La Rivière
3 February - 13 March 2022
In the exhibition out of order, artist Gyz La Rivière expresses the desire for human contact. A colourful and impressive collage of telephone cards and artworks made of LEGO baseplates, represent the need for connection.
The installation Collect Calls shows thousands of telephone cards, from countries everywhere, with all sorts of images: from Catherine Deneuve to Van Gogh, from architecture to ads. Just how many hours and minutes do they represent? Who spoke to whom about what during those conversations?
For years the telephone booth formed a permanent fixture on our streets. The standard PTT booth first appeared in the early 1930s. It was designed by the architects Brinkman & Van der Vlugt, whose works include De Kuip and Van Nelle Factory, for the firm of Gispen. A model of this booth and the slim version of 1995, the Sidonia, form part of the installation by La Rivière at OMI.
In the series Road to Nowhere you can see (city) plans that consist of LEGO baseplates. There is nothing built on them and the road sections do not connect up, but that is precisely what stirs the fantasy. Together with a model of the site hut, designed by J.J.P. Oud for the Witte Dorp (collection Het Nieuwe Instituut), you can see in it modernism itself, as well as La Rivière’s love of De Stijl.
Gyz La Rivière
Houweling Telecommuseum and HNI
Ossip van Duivenbode