Julian Opie

Julian Opie arrives to Palma.

La Llotja of Palma will host the exhibition Julian Opie, which will open on April 26th and will feature 14 pieces specially selected by the British artist.

Julian Opie's sculptures, installations and LCD films will also be exhibited in Passeig Sagrera, Passeig del Born and Casal Solleric, where there will be displayed the pieces Daytime 2, 2021 and Portuguese Towers, 2019.

The exhibition has been organized by the Govern de les Illes Balears in collaboration with the Ajuntament de Palma and the Mario Sequeira gallery, which represents the artist in Portugal.

La Llotja of Palma will host the new exhibition of the renowned London artist Julian Opie, which will be open to the public from April 26 to August 31. Opie has conceived this project as an intervention that spans several spaces. In La Llotja he will install 12 works that align with the geometry of the interior works and reflect the themes that have long characterized his work: the figure in motion, the human face and the architecture of the world around us. In the square outside this historic building, two gigantic steel sculptures will tower above the crowd. On Passeig Sagrera and Passeig del Born two of its famous LED animated sculptures will move to the rhythm of passers-by, and finally at Casal Solleric visitors will encounter a large-scale installation and an LCD animation, the latter being visible from the street. This project is linked to the commitment of the Govern de les Illes Balears and the Ajuntament de Palma to turn La Llotja and Palma into one of the world's leading destinations for contemporary art.

"A space as beautiful as La Llotja needs nothing more, and yet the challenge is to fill it with art without disturbing the balance and ambiance of the interior. It is a very pure architecture with a simple grid design that forms twelve squares around the six columns, each square marked with vivid orange marble tiles. I have devised an exhibition in which I place a work of art in the center of each square, trying to reflect the rhythm of the interior, a system that allows me to show four variations on three sets of work," explains Julian Opie. "As I often do, I have tried to extend the works beyond the site and into the city by broadening the discussion about portraits and monuments, the language of drawing and the process of recognizing and interpreting images," he adds.

Julian Opie

Julian Opie was born in London and graduated from Goldsmiths School of Art in 1983. He lives and works in London. His distinctive formal language is instantly recognizable, and reflects his artistic preoccupation with the idea of representation and the means by which images are perceived and interpreted.

Always exploring different techniques, both classical and avant-garde, Opie plays with ways of seeing through the reinterpretation of the vocabulary of everyday life; his reductive style evokes both a visual and spatial experience of the world around us. Drawing inspiration from classical portraiture, Egyptian hieroglyphics and Japanese woodcuts, as well as public signage, information boards and road signs, Opie connects the clean visual language of modern life with the fundamentals of art history.

His museum exhibitions include Hayward Gallery and ICA (London); MAK (Vienna); Mito Tower (Japan); MoCAK (Krakow); Fosun Foundation (Shanghai); National Gallery of Victoria (Australia) and Berardo Museum (Lisbon), as well as the Delhi Triennale, NGV Triennale, Venice Biennale and Documenta. And some of his public projects are the City Hall Park in New York; the Vltava River in Prague; the Seoul Square building in South Korea; The Lindo Wing at St Mary's Hospital in London; the PKZ in Zurich; the 535 Tower in Causeway Bay, Hong Kong; the Fosun Foundation in Shanghai; the Hyundai General Store in Seoul and the Pacific Place in Hong Kong.

His work is part of public collections such as Tate, British Museum, Victoria & Albert, Arts Council, British Council and National Portrait Gallery (London), MoMA (New York), ICA (Boston), Essl Collection (Vienna), IVAM (Valencia), Berardo Collection Museum (Lisbon), Israel Museum (Jerusalem), National Gallery of Victoria (Australia) and Takamatsu Art Museum (Japan).

La Llotja

La Llotja of Palma is the main reference of civil Gothic architecture in Mallorca. Its architect is Guillem Sagrera, and it was built between the 15th and 16th centuries. Today it is recognized as one of the most important architectural treasures of Mallorca and a must-see destination for lovers of history, architecture and art. The building has a rectangular floor plan, and the interior is composed of a single roof with a ribbed vault supported by six impressive helicoidal columns.

The Govern de les Illes Balears and the Ajuntament de Palma are working together with the aim of positioning La Llotja and Palma as world leaders in contemporary art, developing a permanent program of exhibitions of internationally renowned artists. This is the case of Julian Opie, whose exhibition will be the second to be hosted in this building since June 2023 after the Portuguese Pedro Cabrita Reis, which has received more than 200,000 visits.

Casal Solleric

At Casal Solleric  there will be displayed the pieces Daytime 2, 2021 and Portuguese Towers, 2019