In 1961, La Monte Young began assembling the publication 'An Anthology of Chance Operations' concept art anti-art indeterminacy improvisation meaningless work natural disasters plans of action stories diagrams music poetry essays dance constructions mathematics compositions'.
Gathering musical notations, drawings, graphics, event scores, visual and textual poems, Young sought contributions from figures prominent within New York's neo-Dada experimental scene, including George Brecht, John Cage, Yoko Ono and Nam June Paik. Spanning multiple formats, each contribution shared the same intent: (re)directing authorship and (re)staging participation to incite a chance operation.
Amongst the book's contributions is an essay by the artist Dieter Roth titled 'Method for Realising Indeterminate Asymmetries'. The artist paired the text with a loose piece of paper punched with circular cut-outs which, when placed over the page, would reveal a random selection of words—a chance poem—to its reader. Described by Roth as a 'poetry machine', the sheet automates and displaces the conventional role of the author, and their hegemonic orchestration of words, through the chance operation of a haphazard hole.
First published in 1963, the book became a precursive manifesto for the Fluxus movement, an international network of artists and performers founded in 1960 by An Anthology’s designer George Maciunas. Books became a critical forum within which the group could establish their own protocols of production, presentation, distribution and criticism. Shirking traditional print conventions of sequence, binding and authorship, Fluxus used the book as a container of artistic activity in a show of institutional contempt against the museum, gallery and theatre. Whilst the movement sought to dissolve these venues in favour of the book as a more democratic site of production and dissemination, ALL PROJECTS knowingly reverses this gesture, testing what chance can yield when reinstalled within the gallery’s forum.
For its next exhibition, ALL PROJECTS has invited a group of eleven artists, architects, designers, and photographers to develop their own chance operation. Deliberately non-committal, the exhibition’s brief attempts to relinquish the curator’s guiding hand. From speculative plans to failed constructions, the operations devised by the exhibition’s participants span a range of mediums and temporalities, inciting chance in varied and unexpected ways: through an encounter with the public, the interference of weather, or the passing of time. By embracing chance as a productive material resource, Chance Operations bears witness to a redistribution of authorship amongst maker, material, tool and environment, giving itself over to episodes of indeterminacy.
Images
1. 'An Anthology of Chance Operations' (2nd edition, 1970), inner cover. Edited by La Monte Young and Jackson Mac Low. Courtesy of Rosemary Furtak Collection, Walker Art Center Library.
2. Ibid., list of contributors.
3. Ibid., Dieter Roth’s “Poetry Machine”.
Resources
Ahead of the exhibition's opening, ALL PROJECTS's Benni Allan and Laura Russell sat down with some of the participating artists to discuss their reactions to the exhibition's brief. The conversation brought together Gary Woodley, Joseph Ellwood (Six Dots Design), and Daniela Rubino and Lauren Wilson (RubinoWilson), exploring their understanding of chance in relation to their work and practice.
Read the full conversation here.
Download Press Release.
Opening Hours
Monday – Friday: 10 – 6pm
Saturday: 10 – 4pm
Programme
Opening
Thursday 10 September, 6 – 9pm (all welcome)
Artist Walkthrough (artists to be announced)
Saturday 13 September, 11am – 12pm (all welcome)
Anne Holtrop is an architect and educator. He established his own practice, Studio Anne Holtrop, in 2009 which operates between Amsterdam, Netherlands, and Muharraq, Bahrain, where he resides. Holtrop's practice is concerned with material gesture: the process of finding a specific material’s unique properties in order to achieve, what he describes as, a “directness in construction". The studio's projects include the MiSK Art Institute (ongoing), key Pearling Path landmarks such as the Siyadi Pearl Museum (2024) and Suq al-Qaysariya (2020), Museum Fort Vechten in Bunnik, Netherlands (2015), Bahrain’s Pavilion at Expo Milano (2015), Maison Margiela's Autumn Winter Show in 2018 and a number of the brand's flagship stores in London, Paris, Osaka, and Shanghai.
Currently, Holtrop holds the position of titular professor at the Accademia di Architettura di Mendrisio in Switzerland. Previously, he served as a professor at the ETH Zurich (2018–2024), directed the master Studio for Immediate Spaces at the Rietveld Academy Amsterdam (2012–2016), and served as the editor of the architectural journal OASE (2005–2013). In 2007, he was awarded the Charlotte Köhler Prize for Architecture by the Prince Bernhard Cultural Foundation. In 2016, he received the Iakov Chernikhov International Prize, and in 2020, the Aga Khan Award.
Anne-Lise Agossa is an Abidjan and London based designer whose practice spans art, architecture and design. Drawing on her upbringing across several West African countries, and the region’s diverse cultural and material landscapes – from the tropical coast to the Sahel – her work reinterprets heritage, craft traditions, and domestic rituals. She works across scales, from objects and furniture to interiors and architecture.
Gary Woodley is an artist living and working in London. He has become recognized for his 'impingements' – a body of work he has been working for over 30 years. Once simple three-dimensional geometries inspired by the formation of soap films, these works have now developed into more complex structures made possible by three-dimensional CAD modelling systems, each considering how a ‘platonic’ form can be in dialogue with a physical architectural space. Woodley has exhibited these works extensively across France, the Netherlands, Germany and the UK, including Galerie Hoffman, Germany (2016), Yorkshire Sculpture Park (2016), Galerie Épisodique, Paris (2015), South London Gallery, London (2010), Kettles Yard, Cambridge (2009), Tate Britain, London (2009) and R C de Ruimte, Amsterdam (2007).
Louie Isaaman-Jones lives and works in London. He describes himself as a designer who operates with the creative liberty of an artist and the tools and materials of a craftsmen. Consequently, his works inhabit a space between art, craft, and design, drawing inspiration from his intimate connection with nature.
Lucas Dupuy is a London-based artist whose practice spans painting, relief, collaging, publishing, drawing and sound. Preoccupied by brutalist architectural forms, semiotics and fractal patterns found in nature, his work is often hazy and distorted, giving the effect of something fleeting and nostalgic. He remarks: ‘I’ve always been interested in how light affects everything. A cloud can come and take the light away in ten minutes; that fleeting moment is quite interesting.' Recent exhibitions include Memory Root (Island83; New York, 2025-26), Urban Dwellers (LVH Art; London, 2025), GIGER/DUPUY (Mai36; Basel, 2025), One panoramic view after another will unfold (Belmonte; Madrid, 2024) and Unison (Incubator; London, 2023).
RubinoWilson is the practice of Daniela Rubino and Lauren Wilson. Following their training at Central Saint Martins and The Slade School of Fine Art, Rubino and Wilson established their joint practice as a means to focus on sculptural furniture and contemporary metalwork, driven by a strong understanding of materials and making. Alongside their own design work, RubinoWilson collaborate with artists and designers to develop fabrication projects from concept to completion, specialising in steel and aluminium. They are the founders of Ore Projects, a free mentoring program offering metalwork classes for marginalised groups.
Saqqra is a research and architecture practice founded by Marwa el Mubark and Nile Bridgeman, based in London and Cardiff. The studio's name Saqqra, means bedrock or ‘origin'; an understanding of environmental histories, ecologies and cultures of making shapes their process. The studio’s approach has led them to working in many sensitive locations, including listed buildings and conservation areas and across various typologies, settings, and scales; from private homes to public pavilions, commercial premises to community projects, and landscapes to infrastructures. They believe that strategic efforts made to reduce climatic impact should find meaningful architectural expression; where the chosen materials, arrangement and construction method impart character. This understanding is supported by their teaching and research practice acting as formative backdrop to live projects. Saqqra was featured in New Architects 5, the ‘definitive index of the UK’s best new architects’.
Simone Bossi is a photographer with an architectural background based in Italy. He studied architecture in Milan and Seville. After five years of working as an architect in different European countries, he decided to dedicate himself entirely to photography, collaborating with architects, brands, and editors. Through his indeterminate fragmented images, he tries to reveal the feelings and atmospheres of the space produced after an introspective process. In 2022, he was a jury member for the Architecture Photography Award at the Dezeen Awards in the UK. In 2023, his photographs were exhibited at the Casa Studio Diego Rivera and Frida Kahlo Museum in Mexico City and in a series of solo exhibitions in Italy, Switzerland, Luxembourg and South Korea. In 2024, he was selected by the Danish Art Foundation for the artist residency program at Jørn Utzon Can Lis in Palma de Mallorca. He is currently professor of photography at RUFA – Rome University of Fine Arts in Milan.
Six Dots Design is a furniture and homeware studio founded by Joseph Ellwood. Based in a workshop in East London, the studio is known for its use of raw materials, visible imperfections and expressive forms. Guided by the belief that objects have the ability to shape the way we move through the world, it crafts with intention, making objects which encourage self-expression and self-determination inside and beyond the home. Six Dots Design has collaborated with Shoreditch Arts Club, Rimowa, IKEA, Maison Margiela and CUPRA, among many others.
Takeshi Hayatsu is an architect based in London. Having studied in Tokyo and London, and worked at leading practices including David Chipperfield Architects, Haworth Tompkins, and 6a architects, he founded Hayatsu Architects in 2017 to pursue a participatory model of practice. Hayatsu's work engages communities in shaping their built environment, from historic refurbishments such as Catford House Community Pub to public realm projects including The Blue Market in Bermondsey and Devonshire Square in Palmers Green. By embedding local stories, skills, and heritage into design, he promotes inclusive ownership, social resilience, and long-term stewardship of places. Alongside his practice, Hayatsu is a Senior Lecturer at Kingston University and Unit Master at the Architectural Association, and serves on Harrow Council’s Design Review Panel and Mayor’s Design Advocate.
William Guthrie is an architect living and working in London. He studied at the University of Cambridge, the University of Edinburgh and London Metropolitan University, qualifying as an architect in 2015. Following experience at offices in rural Scotland, London, and Copenhagen, William established his own studio in 2020, based in Peckham. The practice works on projects of greatly varying scale and type and frequently collaborates with practitioners and offices both within and outside the field of architecture. In addition to practice, William teaches at the Kingston School of Art and has been an invited critic, tutor, and lecturer at schools of architecture in the UK and mainland Europe.