JL Murtaugh and Syndicate
Volume, One
December 2022

JL Murtaugh is an artist, curator, writer, and consultant. Since 2014, he has operated primarily under the alias of Syndicate, a fluid, nomadic contemporary art platform producing exhibitions, events, and publications in long-term collaboration with artists around the world.

At lower_cavity, Murtaugh has created a sketch for a future book project entitled Volume. He conceives Volume as an indexed synthesis of his past artistic labor—as an individual, in his capacities as Syndicate, through his roles with other organizations, and from his work as a freelance advisor. Installed in an off-site annex of lower-cavity’s primary project space, Volume, One represents an initial foray into this larger project. Consisting of a film assembled from years of cellphone footage, architectural drawings, and personal letters (drawn from Murtaugh’s own correspondence as well as various historical material), Volume, One weaves a Sebaldian meditation on distance, service economics, and the role of architecture in shaping personal experience. Accompanying the film (or perhaps acting as an extension of it) is a physical collection of artifacts Murtaugh has foraged from the post-industrial landscape of western Massachusetts during his residency, each object acting as a coded proxy or metonym for past experiences, relations, and roles. Presented within a crypt-like inner chamber, they function as a kind of memory palace-meets-exhibition in miniature. For Murtaugh, this physical archive and the film serve as early instantiations of the book Volume will eventually become.

As Syndicate, JL Murtaugh has previously operated gallery spaces in London and Cologne and continues to develop offsite projects worldwide. Syndicate has also participated in editions of NADA New York, NADA Miami, Material Mexico City, and other fairs. Since 2020, Murtaugh has served as the artistic director of Autarkia, Vilnius. His artistic advisory initiative, ‘The Bureau,’ was launched in 2021 and has taken place at various locations in Vilnius and Kaunas. In June of 2023, Murtaugh will be a resident artist at Nida Art Colony in Lithuania.

Prior to founding Syndicate, Murtaugh was the director of Tenderpixel, London from 2012 to 2014. He studied fine art at Goldsmiths College in London (MFA), Kunstakademie Düsseldorf, and Columbia College (BFA) after education in architecture and design. Originally from Chicago, he is now based in Vilnius and London.