The longevity of Roman Opalka
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Alistair Rider [1]
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[1] University of St Andrews
University of St Andrews
Reino Unido
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- Localización: Art history: journal of the Association of Art Historians, ISSN 0141-6790, Vol. 39, Nº. 4, 2016 (Ejemplar dedicado a: Material imagination: Art in Europe, 1946-72), págs. 820-839
- Idioma: inglés
- Texto completo no disponible (Saber más ...)
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Resumen
Between 1965 and his death in 2011, the Polish artist Roman Opałka completed one work of art, which he understood as synonymous with his life. It involved painting every number from one up to infinity on identically-sized canvases, and, over the ensuing forty-six years, he covered 233 paintings with minute white digits. This unprecedented project has generally been seen as an existential engagement with lived time, but in this essay I also consider Opałka’s practice in relation to historical time, as a vehicle of personal self-formation. His ongoing work enabled him to cultivate a sense of integrity; its extreme rigour was a conscientious response to his contemporary society. I argue that this model of defiant self-affirmation closely resembles that which Albert Camus articulated in his absurdist manifesto, The Myth of Sisyphus. As with the mythological figure of Sisyphus, Opałka’s self-worth was maintained through the unrelenting persistence of an action.
