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Julian Opie: Walking on O'Connell Street
20th January 2008 to 25th October 2008
Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane is delighted to present the first large-scale public exhibition of works by internationally renowned artist Julian Opie in Dublin. The exhibition entitled Julian Opie: Walking on O’Connell Street, curated by Barbara Dawson, comprises five animated LED installations on the central median of O’Connell Street and on the forecourt of the Gallery on Parnell Square. The animations connect Dublin City Gallery The Hugh Lane, with its renowned collection of figurative art, to Dublin’s main street. Four of Opie’s animated figures - Sara, Julian, Jack and Suzanne – are displayed walking on O’Connell Street in the direction of Parnell Square where Sara dances outside the Gallery. While moving signs and images are familiar in city sights these works, inspired by popular culture, go beyond the obvious with a compelling contemporary aesthetic. O’Connell Street is now another public platform for contemporary practice curated by Dublin City Gallery the Hugh Lane. Julian Opie: Walking on O’Connell Street follows on from the highly successful Barry Flanagan exhibition of giant bronze hares, which leapt up and down O’Connell Street in the summer of 2006. The Julian Opie installation will remain on display for the duration of the Gallery’s centenary celebrations. Julian Opie is widely recognised as one of the pre-eminent artists working with public sculpture today. His images are elemental in appearance though amongst the most complex and sophisticated in contemporary art practice. His highly stylised work involves the reduction of photographs or short films into figurative reproductions. His unique portraiture is characterised by black outlines with flat areas of colour and details are reduced to his linear elemental style that captures the subject’s entire personality.
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