Julian Opie's Work

Here in NY at the City Hall and in Boston at the river I run into Julian Opie’s work. Suzanne and Julian walking. At the beginning I found them interesting because they were like “icons” walking and I am very attached to those kinds of representations. Then I realized the animation was really accurate, and simulates a real person walking. I found Opie’s work interesting as an intervention in a public space and my interpretation was that he was trying to focus on the importance of walking become this act an “icon” that characterize pedestrian cities as New York, Boston or Tokio. “… the figures appear to walk endlessly 24 hours a day with mesmerizing ease, evoking the strength of Boston as a pedestrian-friendly city.”

He is inspired by mass-media and by the technological and commercial visual bombardment of our world to create representations of different object in the city: people, trees, roads, cars, and buildings. Most of his work is always placed in public spaces such as museums and galleries to billboards, hospitals, airports etc.

When I work in signage projects my first step is always to find out what are the characteristic of the place that make it to be unique. This is my starting point. I just have the thought that was interesting how Julian creates an installation that was representing an specific characteristic of a place, in the case, the city itself.