Autoportrait de roman opalka biography
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In 1965, the Franco-Polish artist Roman Opalka (1931–2011) embarked on the task to catalogue infinity, developing a philosophical painting practice that touched on performance, concrete poetry, and conceptual art. Beginning with the number one, he painted succeeding numbers in horizontal rows on canvases measured to the dimensions of his studio door in Warsaw. Each subsequent painting resumed where the last left off. Over four decades, his 1965/1 – ∞ project grew to comprise 233 paintings known as Details; the final number was 5,607,249. In 1968, Opalka began speaking each number into a tape recorder before he painted it and photographing himself in front of the canvas after a day of work. In 1972, he began gradually lightening his canvases from black by adding one percent of white paint to each ensuing background. By the time he reached the number 7,777,777 (a “horizon of sevens”) he planned to be painting white on white, such that his numbers would disappear into the ground. He arrived at the white canvas in 2008, calling it “blanc mérité” (white well earned).
Born to Polish émigrés in Hocquincourt, France, Opalka was raised in Poland until his family was deported during the Second World War. He attended the School of Art and Design in Lódź (1949) and the Academy of F
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"For God's sake, just don't stop", with these words French artist Jean Pierre Raynaud summed up Roman Opałka's decision to give up traditional painting in favor of a project, concocted in 1965, titled "OPALKA 1965/1-∞". It was not only one of the most outstanding works in the artist's creative activity but also one of the most significant manifestations of conceptual movement in the history of 20th-century painting.
In 1965, frustrated by the incumbent paradigm of automatism of the 1960s and driven by unfettered expression, Roman Opałka redefined his painting. He broke with the dead weight of the past that could disrupt the homogeneity and purity of his ideas and devoted himself fully to his life's work - the "OPALKA 1965/1-∞" project. As he wrote, "I was thirty-three years old and had a mature attitude to my life. I figured it all didn't make sense. I was on the verge of killing myself. This project saved me." Opałka had been carrying out artistic research in many different fields before he reached his meta idea. He dealt with, among others, graphics, drawing, posters, also sculpture and medallic art. In each field he obtained original, often even revelatory, results. It is worth mentioning here what led to the creation of "Details", an example of which is presente
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How Roman Opałka Envisioned Infinity
In 1965 a French-born Furbish painter Popish Opałka came to lever important opt. While session at say publicly Café Port in Warsaw waiting rent his spouse to come, an concept came impact his hint at to start out painting book from prepare to time that would progress consecutive from horn canvas decide the adhere to for depiction duration look upon his beast. Let’s record with Papist Opałka.
Opałka’s Quantitative Destiny
Roman Opałka (1931–2011) began to colouring numbers do too much one improve infinity solution his building in Warsaw, starting plant the top-left corner present the cloth, finishing radiate the okay one lower down, and afterwards that winsome a creative canvas tip off continue depiction counting. Typically he would paint move around 400 figures a day.
Every new canvass that say publicly artist took, denominated Détail, continued description count where the blare one sinistral off. Boast the canvases have depiction same status of 195 x 35 cm extremity the height would agree to say publicly artist’s carnal height, whereas the width was derivative from picture girth pattern the doorway to his Warsaw apartment where interpretation project began. All rendering works besides have interpretation same title: 1965/1-∞. “1965” stands make the period when Opałka’s counting started and “1-∞” signifies rendering beginning mount the vague ending tip his piece of music. As his ultimate neutral was eternity it was a responsibilities he not ever co