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LA><ART Sound
Julian Opie Sep 9 - Oct 31, 2006
“City” (1999)
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Press Release | download PDF
LA><SOUND playing continuously through October, 2006 selected by Timothy Ivison LA><ART is pleased to announce the second installment of LA><SOUND, a series of audio interventions presented in the interstitial space of the gallery entrance. Works in this series consist of conceptual and site-specific interventions, ambient experiments and field recordings by emerging and established intermedia artists. From September 9th to October 31st, LA><SOUND will feature the piece City by Julian Opie. Originally produced for Swiss Radio Channel 2, City is a rare example of audio from Opie, who is primarily known for his well-established visual language of painting, sculpture, and film. This work is not a total departure however, retaining the characteristically reductive play of signifiers in Opie’s larger body of work. The piece itself is a simple exercise: a group of people riding in a car name what they see, simultaneously and continuously. The cacophonous laundry list of billboard text, car makes, road signs, architectural details, and pedestrian activities seem at first banal but quickly accumulate into an exhaustive description of place and time, ebbing into pure wordplay and back to banality. The piece cleverly utilizes direct observations to transform an otherwise unremarkable car ride, highlighting the latent perceptual complexity of commonplace travel. Julian Opie (1958 -) lives and works in London. He began exhibiting his work internationally almost immediately after graduating from Goldsmith’s College University of London (1979-82). Notable exhibitions include solo shows with the Tate Gallery, London; Public Art Fund, New York City; the ICA, Boston; Kunstverein Hannover, Kunsthalle Bern and the Hayward Gallery, London. Opie's works are in the collections of the Tate Gallery, London; the Museum of Modern Art, New York; the Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh; and the Israel Museum, Jerusalem, among others. He is represented by Lisson Gallery, London and Barbara Krakow, Boston. |