Piclist.

Here are the images that I will be using in my essay, along with what I will write about them. How seriously can I take art theory at this stage? Is feigned respect below disrespect?



Julian Opie's painting Imagine you are walking comes complete with instructions. Through simple variations of line and block colour, Opie creates a seemingly three-dimensional environment 'into' which the viewer can walk - but only in their imagination. The graphical style is similar to that of [which was itself an update of Midi Maze which may have inspired 'first-person games' with a sense of environmental depth like Doom and 'third-person' games like Tomb Raider]. I consider this piece to improve when rotated by 180 degrees, giving a black sky and a watery floor, which to me becomes a scene of frustrated escape. Walking in this piece is an invitation, the beginning of something else, a journey that you have to create for yourself.



Andy Warhol's Sidewalk shows what appears to be a print made from an altered photograph of a sidewalk, re-coloured in a manner common to his work. Celebrity hounds the piece, impressions of the impressions of four separate stars from a (presumably) American pavement. Celebrity value comes into question - are those a print of a photo of the original handprints made by the real Cary Grant? Is that a genuine Warhol? In this piece, the walk is depicted as a point of view - the walker would pass over these prints in reality (if permitted, I have no idea of pedestrian's rights in replicated America) and in a gallery would see them flat, at eye level rather than foot level. The surface represented is special version of the everyday sidewalk, with the signatures of famous actors-made-authors, not to mention Warhol's own deliberately noncommittal openness and visual hallmark.



The Tate website says:

"Long began making outdoor sculptures in 1965, but this was his first work to result from the straightforward act of walking in the landscape. By treading back and forth along the same line in a field in Somerset, Long wore away a thin path that temporarily altered the appearance of the land. Remaining briefly as a mark of his activity, the flattened line lasted until the grass grew again. This photograph is the sole record of the line's existence and therefore of the artist's movement through the landscape."

I say:
Conceptual simplicity led to a dull photo but he carried on with this outdoor, natural sculpture stuff and made some much better work. If only the photograph had been printed on dead grass.

Who's best?