Julian Opie
(b. 1958)
Works exhibited:
Rest Area, aluminium
My Aunt's Sheep, aluminium and plastic
Solo exhibitions: Lisson Gallery, 1983, 1985, 1985, 1996; Kolnischer Kunstverein, Koln, 1984-5; Institute of Contemporary Arts, London, 1985; Kohji Ogura Gallery, Japan, 1991; Primo Piano, Rome, 1991; Kunsthalle, Bern, 1991; Wiener Secession, Vienna, 1992; Hayward Gallery, 1993; Tramway, Glasgow, 1994; Gallery Analix Polla, Geneva, 1996; Gallery Bob van Orsouw, Zurich, 1996, 1999; Gallery Nova Sin, Prague, 1997; Barbara Thumm Gallery, Berlin, 1997; Meymac Centre d’Art Contemporain, Abbaye Saint Andre, France, 2000.
Amid so much that is grandiose and self-important in contemporary culture, Julian Opie's witty and often self-deprecating inventions dismantle quite matter-of-factly conventional expectations of the originality, authenticity and expressiveness of the work of art. Although his constructions seem often to inhabit a postmodern world without depth or emotional values, their apparent status as replicas of a missing original is often disturbingly qualified. Even if they look like standard units issued in a process of industrial production, that uniformity is often hesitated, the template is departed from, however slightly, until we realize that what we are contemplating are the effects of a skilled, crafted portrayal of the world of mechanical reproduction.
Opie's sculptures are intended to look like copies of sculptures, souvenirs of a distant original, edited versions on a different scale; they are often the cut-out versions, two-dimensional impressions of three-dimensional objects. In the case of My Aunt's Sheep, paintings are disposed as if they were sculptures; or, sculptural form is eclipsed on a surface of paint. Any reference the artwork has to actual sheep consists of a minimum array of generic traits. If superimposed, the series of outlines would have the jumpiness of a cartoon, casting more than just a shadow of doubt on the principle of interchangeability. The distinguishing features of sheep, and what distinguishes one sheep from another, are construed in terms of visible properties, rather than structural ones; Opie's sheep exist in a world of surfaces, or a world in which our judgement of the value of an object is skin-deep.
The impetus behind this artist's critique of the society of the spectacle derives from the extent to which contemporary modes of observation are governed increasingly by the conventions of the computer screen, by the operation of two dimensions masquerading as three, and by the representation of bodies and objects without texture. Interaction within these conventions conceives of identity as a series of responses to a programme which can systematize everything, including a lapse of attention. Opie's Rest Area is not the three dimensional equivalent of a screen-saving device, but a reminder of the way the body can occupy space and time according to its own determinations.
