This animated LED work by Julian Opie is installed on the forecourt of the Hugh Lane Dublin City Gallery on Parnell Square, Dublin 1. It is just one part of a temporary installation of five animated LED installations which were sited along the central median of O’Connell Street and on Parnell Square. This element of the five part installation still remains on the Hugh Lane forecourt. The installation was curated by Barbara Dawson for the Hugh Lane's centenary celebrations in 2008.

Blurring the relations between artist and non-artist within our society, Opie’s images are elemental in appearance though amongst the most complex and sophisticated in contemporary art practice. They reveal to us that that culture is malleable, exciting, free, and all around us. Challenging the traditional gallery relationship between art and its consumers, where the context alone demands concentration, intimacy, study and time, Julian Opie’s installation of works on Dublin’s O Connell Street allowed everyone access, immediacy, and sophistication without the usual pomp of public art. As a successful artist who exhibits internationally, Opie uses computers in art to present items of everyday life. His style was brought to a wider audience as part of the stage sets for U2, and their Vertigo world tour of 2005, where he showed another LED screen displaying an aimless walking man figure. The O’ Connell Street installation featured four life-size “walking” figures (Sara, Jack, Julian and Suzanne) and also a life size dancing figure (Sara) mounted on durable plinths. Michael Dempsey. 

Julian Opie was born in London in 1958 and is a graduate of Goldsmiths College (1979–82). His highly stylised work, involves the reduction of photographs (or short films) into figurative reproductions (created using computer software). Opie's work features in collections including the Carnegie Museum, Pittsburgh, Contemporary Art Society, Britain, Deutsche Bank, Frankfurt; ICA, Boston; Institut Valencià d’Art Modern, Spain; Kunsthaus Zurich; Museo d’Arte Contemporanea Prato; Museum of Modern Art, New York; National Gallery of Victoria, Melbourne; National Portrait Gallery, London; The British Museum, London; The Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation, Portugal; The National Museum of Art, Osaka; The Tate Gallery, London; The Victoria and Albert Museum, London. Julian Opie is represented by Lisson Gallery, London.   

For further information on the Hugh Lane's temporary exhibitions programme, contact Michael Dempsey, Head of Exhibitions,  mdempsey.hughlane@dublincity.ie

http://www.hughlane.ie/