Visual art exhibitions and events with a platform for critical writing
Ikon Gallery, Birmingham 14 September – 4 November
Reviewed by: Krystyn Finn
Collected together in the Ikon Gallery and displayed in the window of Birmingham's Habitat, Julian Opie's new and recent works are as pervasive and numerous as the visual shorthand we encounter on a daily basis through signage and advertising.
Travel, rural and urban motifs thematically inform the exhibition, with paintings, sculpture and computer animations displayed installation-like in the gallery acting as points of reference to the external world. My Aunt's Sheep – two dimensional sheep silhouettes analogous to road signs, painted, yet devoid of detail – are sited in front of the gallery. Thus a living animal that one might encounter or register subliminally whilst travelling through the rural environment is brought into an urban context and reduced to its visual essence. Six monitors are encountered in the transitional space of the gallery foyer displaying Imagine You Are Moving – looped animations consisting of simplified virtual landscapes scrolling horizontally across the screens.
Changes of scale, collapsed perspective, bright glossy surfaces and reductive visual representation are utilised throughout Opie's work. In the first floor gallery, huge wall paintings depicting aerial views of roads lead the viewer around the space – interspersed by a series of large landscape paintings. These are metaphorically and physically counterpoised and contrasted with three-dimensional works such as Modern Towers 6-13 and the whimsical Six Lost Animals – a pastiche of road signs that warn of the presence of animals – in this instance small farmyard and wild animals that are potentially road-kill victims.
The underlying themes of travel and the nature of place are continued in the purely audio piece Cityscape – a narrated list of observations made while journeying around the city environment – situated on the gallery stairwell. This narrative experience is continued in the upper gallery where more recent work is sited. A series of digitally manipulated c-type prints derived from photographs taken by Opie are accompanied by lengthy text captions which are rich in evocative detail. Another series combines sound and image with short titles, like Cowbells, Tractor, Silence.
The visual simplicity of Opie's work belies its complexity – producing images that are open to interpretation and subtly demand an engagement with the work.
Writer detail:
KRYSTYN FINN
artist and writer.
Venue detail:
No one has commented on this article yet, why not be the first?
To post a comment you need to login
Back to top