Olaf Mooij

Olaf Mooij was born in 1958 in the Netherlands, where he lives and works

The Rotterdam-based artist Olaf Mooij (born 1958) became particularly well-known for his automobile sculptures displayed in public spaces. Almost everyone is familiar with his Braincar, a vehicle whose roof has been transformed into a brain. During the day, the car drives through a neighborhood, a city, or a street, and at night, it “dreams” of its day through video projections on the matte white surface of the brain. Since the early 1990s, Mooij has considered the street as a stage for his works. Typical of his generation, especially artists like Joep van Lieshout and Jeroen Doorenweerd, they connected their works much more to the outside world beyond gallery walls. This often caused confusion: was it really visual art? In 1999, Mooij was nominated for the Rotterdam Design Prize with his DJ Mobile: a modified Ford Sierra equipped with a professional audio system, ten loudspeakers, and a DJ booth. Yet for the informed viewer, one thing was clear: Mooij’s work is deeply rooted in sculptural tradition. At the core of sculpture lies the artist’s ability to suggest life within inert matter. Rodin’s famous Kiss is essentially just a piece of stone, yet nothing else is perceived (or felt) but a passionate embrace. Olaf Mooij’s cars are mere bodies, yet he transforms them into personalities, into living matter.

By adding exaggerated hairstyles, wigs, or enlarging certain parts, cartoon-like images take shape. These humorous images put into perspective the contemporary human relationship with machines and devices that surround them. The universal phenomenon of the object of affection is playfully mocked, as in the Chesterfield Car, as welcoming as a real Chesterfield sofa (2004, Boijmans Van Beuningen Museum collection). In his recent series of works, almost entirely exhibited at TENT Rotterdam in March 2009, Mooij seems to aim for a return to the absolute autonomy of sculpture. His car images no longer have functional use but serve only to evoke modes of transportation. The works stand, rest, hang, and tilt in the exhibition space. Placed on the floor without a pedestal, they appear highly vulnerable, stripped of practical value. The skin, the surface of the car, becomes the central focus. The skin of what could have been a station wagon lies folded on the floor. A Volkswagen silhouette rests unstably on the ground, its surface covered with a black, stone-like layer. The work presents itself as a fossilized remnant of a distant past. A small car is straddled by a yellowish membrane from which it seems to emerge; the idea of birth is evoked.

In this interplay between form and meaning, between volume and surface, between symbolic function and practical use, Mooij searches for the exact point of convergence. End and beginning, before and after: this dead matter is biomorphic, resembling living beings. Mooij’s recent sculptures have a strong tactile dimension; they invite the viewer to touch them and, why not, to love them.

- Text by Mariette Dolle