For Julian Opie’s first exhibition at Lisson Gallery’s new Beijing space, the leading contemporary artist unveils a series of new works, all created in 2022. The exhibition highlights new and innovative techniques developed by Opie, featuring some of his most iconic motifs, from landscape lightboxes to reclining stainless steel figures, alongside new formats including dancers in animated LED, vinyl and mosaic. Together, this body of work evidences Opie’s ongoing fascination with the contemporary experience, whether urban, rural or virtual. The exhibition marks the artist’s second solo exhibition with Lisson Gallery in China, following his 2020 presentation at the gallery’s Shanghai space.
Read moreWith a practice that encompasses painting, sculpture, billboard posters, LED screens, large-scale public works and even album covers, across a diverse range of mediums, Opie’s distinct pictorial language has developed from an acute observation of his surroundings, allowing him to distil an infinite number of influences and visual references into a reduced, symbolic representation of the world. Rather than a photographic record of a moment, Opie is interested in capturing a complete picture of reality in the present; simple signs and pictograms are expanded to evoke real people and places.
The exhibition includes a series of reclining stainless-steel figures, inspired in form by wooden tribal antique statuary from southeast Asia, presented in the South Gallery of the Beijing space. Exhibited alongside these are four lightboxes denoting landscape scenes – stylised depictions of vistas from the French rural countryside, with roads, grasslands and mountains transformed into abstracted graphic forms.
In the adjacent space, visitors can experience a sequence of figures dancing in Tik-Tok inspired routines, presented here in motion and in static form. For this, Opie invited four dancers to perform a specific dance sequence, inspired by a “shuffle dance” popular to the short-form social media platform. This fast-pace dance is animated across the large-scale LED screens, as well as one free-standing work. To complement the rhythm and energy of the experience, Opie also commissioned a musician to create a series of looped soundtracks inspired by early 2000s electronic dance music that mirror and further animate the dance.
Singular steps from the dance routine are also captured in a series of vinyl and mosaic paintings that accompany the animations. The forms and colours of these vinyl figures nod to specific modern attire, such as the winter nylon ski suits visible on ski slopes. Despite a very different technique, the smaller mosaic tile paintings relate closely to pixelated LED screens, indicating the contrasting references of historic and contemporary.
In parallel with this exhibition, Opie’s solo show ‘OP.VR/HEM@shenzhen’, presented by He Art Museum, is now on view at MIXC World in Shenzhen, China, focusing on the artist’s latest virtual reality work alongside more historic work.
著名英国艺术家朱利安·奥培 (Julian Opie) 在里森画廊全新北京空间的首次个展将呈现一系列2022年创作的全新作品。本次展览将通过不同媒介呈现奥培最标志性的艺术元素和突出他使用的全新技术，展出作品包括风景灯箱、全新不锈钢人体雕塑系列，及以 LED 动画、乙烯基和马赛克瓷砖呈现的舞蹈人像，它们共同彰显艺术家对当代生活体验的持续探索——无论这种体验是发生在城市、乡村还是虚拟世界。本次展览是奥培继2020年的上海个展后，再度在里森中国推出展览。
奥培的作品形式和采用的媒介不拘一格，包括绘画、雕塑、广告海报、LED 屏幕、大规模公共创作，甚至还有唱片专辑封面等。他独树一帜的图像语言源于对周遭环境的敏锐观察，这使他能够将源源不尽的视觉灵感提炼成对大千世界简约的象征。比起精确地记录过去的瞬间，他更感兴趣的是捕捉当下现实的全貌，以简洁的标识和图形符号精准捕捉真实人物的精神和风景的特征。
错落散布于画廊南展厅的是多件不锈钢材质的人型雕塑。和两年前在上海空间展出的扁平铝制人像不同，这些轮廓简洁的圆管线形雕塑灵感起源自东南亚木质古董部落人像，姿态放松地躺卧在地，仿若在愉快地享受着午后时光。四周墙上的风景灯箱描绘的是法国乡村景致，乡间的山脉、田野和道路则通过几何色块抽象化呈现。
在画廊的北展厅，观众将看到一系列动态和静态的跳舞人像。奥培邀请了四名舞者表演一组特定的舞蹈，舞步的灵感来自流行于社交媒体 Tik-Tok 上的舞步。这种节奏快速的舞蹈分别在四个 LED 屏幕和一件四面 LED 立柱上以连续动画的形式呈现。为了配合舞蹈的动感，艺术家还委托了一位音乐人根据舞步，制作一系列灵感来自千禧年初电子舞曲的循环配乐。
舞蹈中特定的舞姿被定格在对面墙上的乙烯基和马赛克绘画中。其中乙烯基作品的颜色明快，类似滑雪服设计中常采用的色彩搭配，再次体现了奥培对现代元素的转译。而马赛克绘画虽然在媒介和技术上与其他作品截然不同，但构成画面的无数个方形瓷砖意在呼应像素化的 LED 屏幕——可以说是历史和当代的并置对比。
与本次展览同期，奥培的个展「OP.VR/HEM@shenzhen」现正于深圳万象天地展出。由和美术馆呈现，此展览带来了奥培最新 VR 作品的全球首发以及过往精选作品。
