Abandoning the neo-pop statement of his first painted objects, created on steel sheets covered with cellulose paints in strong colours – typewriters, suitcases, piles of books, the segment of the line from A to B –, Julian Opie makes reference in this work to the minimalist sculpture of Donald Judd or Dan Flavin, in a kind of imagetic exhaustion brought on by previous excesses. From 1987 onwards, Opie seemed to be interested in establishing a new relationship with the public, more immediate, supported by the awareness of the artistic rules of the work. Likewise, he was reflecting in a seemingly more distanced way, on the Duchampian relationship between sculpture and objects in current use. His works progressed to constructions made from industrial materials, like aluminium, stainless steel or PVC. Despite the obvious reference to forms and functions recognisable in the world of wardrobes, cold and aseptic metallic containers of our everyday, the de-functionalising of the object, and the visual game proposed between the materials used in its fabrication, establish their sculptural presence as a work of art.

 

Suspended on the wall, isolated in its metallic coldness, empty, lacking any element of interior sustenance – shelves, hooks, rails, hangers –, to clarify its vertical orientation, the parallelepiped V establishes a game of recognition and unfamiliarity with the observer. The padded exterior facades, in a shining white plastic, are a concession to pop of greater tactile resonance. The metal, the transparency of the glass doors, the dim reflection in the rectangular interior of the box, contain the void. Opie perfected the execution of these objects, retouched in a beauty that is artificial and inert. In these linear works, we come across potential for sensorial remission, emotive towards our technologically dependent daily universe. In this way, we pay more attention to «the light that flows from an open refrigerator in the middle of the night or to the quietude of an automatic vending machine in the street».*

 

 

Ana Vasconcelos

May 2010

 

 

* Takahashi Mizuki, “A Report on Julian Opie Or a Nonfiction Regarding Reality”, in Julian Opie, Tokyo, Contemporary Art Center, Art Tower Mito, w/ pg.