On View
Folio IV · Now On View
The first-ever in-museum installation of Codex Algorithm, in collaboration with Woodmere Art Museum. With the patronage of Dennis Alter, Trustee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art.
The Exhibition
The first physical installation of the artwork in a museum gallery setting.
Look Longer: Matthew Olivier's Codex Algorithm at Woodmere is the first-ever in-museum installation of Codex Algorithm, the major conceptual artwork of Matthew Olivier's career. In collaboration with Woodmere Art Museum, Olivier has added five works on view in Woodmere's galleries to Codex Algorithm — interpreting each as a chapter of the work.
Woodmere has installed tablet computers positioned beside the selected works throughout its galleries, inviting visitors to watch, listen, and engage with Olivier's essays and films while viewing the original artworks. The collaboration takes the project beyond the digital realm, extending Codex Algorithm into the museum itself.
The installations explore an unexpected connection between the art of the past and today's algorithmic feeds — historical paintings as predecessors to the contemporary feed, where images are selected, framed, and circulated within systems designed to capture attention.
Look Longer is presented in collaboration with Woodmere Art Museum and with the patronage of Dennis Alter, Trustee of the Philadelphia Museum of Art, whose earlier commission of The Philadelphia Museum of Art Manuscript established the Codex's relationship with the city of Philadelphia.
I · Venue
Charles Knox Smith Hall, 9201 Germantown Ave, Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia. Wed — Sun, 10 am — 5 pm.
II · Duration
The installation opens Sunday, September 21, 2026 and remains on view ongoing. Included with museum admission.
III · Form
Five tablet computers, positioned beside five works from Woodmere's permanent collection. Each plays the chapter of Codex Algorithm that reads the painting beside it.
Public Program · Oct 28, 2026
Smith Hall, Woodmere Art Museum · 5 — 7 pm · $5
An in-person conversation about Codex Algorithm, the installations at Woodmere, and the ideas behind Olivier's practice — followed by a signing of his first book, The Art of Reading Art: Understanding What Makes Great Art Great (Smith Street Books, October 2026). The book will be available for purchase on-site during the event.
Register at Woodmere →The Five Works · On View at Woodmere
The five works from Woodmere's permanent collection now installed with Codex Algorithm essays on tablet computers beside each painting.
Subscribe to the Manuscript
The five chapters of The Woodmere Manuscript are currently playing on tablet computers beside the paintings at Woodmere Art Museum. Subscribers will be notified when each essay is released online at codexalgorithm.com.
Email [email protected] to subscribe →~1 chapter / month once online release begins · No marketing · Unsubscribe anytime
About
Codex Algorithm is the major conceptual artwork of Matthew Olivier — visual artist and conceptual artist, with major practices in painting and writing. The work is a long-form sequence of algorithmic essays — short films and writings — that read paintings from across the historical record as early instances of the attention-engineering we now call the algorithmic feed. All essays are written by the artist; the narrator's voice is rendered through synthesis as a deliberate mask, in keeping with the work's argument that the medium is the message. Since its 2023 launch, the work has been distributed natively through the algorithmic feed and reached hundreds of millions of viewers per year. Look Longer at Woodmere is Codex Algorithm's first physical installation in a museum — the work extended beyond the feed, into a gallery, for the first time.
Enter the Codex →