Julian Opie Exhibit

Over the weekend I took a two and a half hour train ride all the way out to the city of Suwon, a place that is on the opposite side of the province that I am residing at. I bared through the ride because I really wanted to go to this exhibit of Julian Opie, a contemporary artist from Britain. 

I had become acquainted to his work through the album cover of the British band 'Blur'. Then a few years later, I started attending the art fairs in Hong Kong and had come across the animated walking figures. Those animated walk cycles were really interesting to me because I had not seen an animated installation before, and it felt really fresh. 

It was a really cold and frigid day so I had no plans of staying outside any long than five minutes, but unfortunately Suwon was unfamiliar territory for me so I ended up taking a good twenty minute walk trekking to SIMA, The Suwon Ipark Museum of Art. 

On my way to the museum I had come across a seemingly populated area because I was hinted by three popular fast food chains located right beside each other on the same street. This was a foreboding moment, especially for someone who has not been taking good care of his dieting habits through the winter. I jumped into one of the stores excusing myself from the cold wind and I picked the largest set possible, a set consisting of two sides of fries, two sides of soda and three burgers, totaling two thousand calories. I bravely rejected the soda because I'm not really into sugary things but the greasy calories made its way pleasingly into my ever expanding gut. After stuffing myself silly with the obscene amount of junk, I made myself out back into the cold feeling very satisfied. I was telling my conscience that because I had already consumed two thousand calories, for the rest of the day I will starve. (This did not work out as planned because by dinner time I was hungry again, and more food was inserted into my stomach.)

Upon arriving in the museum, which was located within a gated fortress area and also a UNESCO world heritage site, I bought my ticket and put on my art vision goggles, preparing to savor the exhibit. (The exhibit was really affordable at the price of four dollars per head, whereas the Ghibli exhibit from the week before was a whopping fifteen dollars!) 

To be honest I was not a big fan of Julian Opie's style, but I was really surprised at the scale of his pieces and the execution of his work was really crisp and tight. There was a really graphic element presented in his work and animated walking figures were littered around the exhibit. What did interest me were the mosaic pieces, tapestry pieces and the landscape pieces. They were works that I was not familiar with and it was interesting seeing the artists interpretation of these mediums. This exhibit really showed that the artist was experimenting with various mediums and truly redefining the gap between traditional elements and contemporary elements of the art world.

(My favorite piece from the exhibit was the jogging Adidas lady.)