JULIAN OPIE, LUC AND LUDIVINE GET MARRIED (PAIR 11), LUC AND LUDIVINE GET MARRIED SERIES, SIGNED MIXED MEDIA PRINT, EDITION OF 10, 2007
Luc And Ludivine Get Married (pair 11) is a print from Julian Opie’s Luc And Ludivine Get Married series from 2007 that shows two individual portraits of a man and a woman. Presented in elliptical frames and blown domed glazing, the man faces outwards towards the viewer and the woman is shown in profile, facing the right.
As with many works in Opie’s oeuvre, this series combines the visual language of graphic design with the traditions of art history. Luc And Ludivine Get Married (pair 11) explicitly engages with the 19th century art historical tradition of silhouette portraiture, led by artist Auguste Edouart, whereby the new middle classes would commission family or individual portraits to record a moment in time. Opie has a strong interest in noticing silhouettes everywhere and his The Gallery Staff series from 2010 also engages with this tradition.
Speaking of his desire to go beyond the traditional boundaries of art and art history Opie has said, “Our attitude towards art history, towards schools, styles and ‘isms’, was quite aggressive. We wanted to manipulate them, to use whatever style we wished.”
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ABOUT JULIAN OPIE
British artist Julian Opie challenges traditional approaches to portraiture through his digitally designed and seemingly contradictory, depersonalised works. Working also with landscapes and cityscapes, Opie’s highly stylised work involves the reduction of photographs or short films into figurative reproductions created using computer software. The hallmarks of his artistic style are portraits and animated walking figures, rendered with minimal detail in black line drawing. Learn more about Julian Opie.