| "Making just one postage stamp or flip book would | | | | certainty. |
| seem silly. Museums and galleries are recent inventions | | | | In a world of mass production why shouldn't art be |
| and are great places to show art, but CD covers are | | | | seen in any form? After all who doesn't see the Mona |
| also good, as are mantelpieces and books and invite | | | | Lisa on a T-shirt or a mug before they get the chance |
| cards and banners and city streets. It has been a | | | | to see the real thing? If indeed they are fortunate |
| frustration to see so much effort go into some of | | | | enough to get the chance to see the real thing at all. |
| these projects, particularly exhibition catalogues and | | | | So is this surely not a better way of flooding the world |
| then find that they rapidly become unavailable except | | | | around us with more exciting and inspiring objects? |
| for a few in cardboard boxes in the basement." (Julian | | | | This is an age old debate within the art world. Ever |
| Opie) | | | | since photography, or even printmaking, reared its wide |
| Julian Opie is one of the most well known and popular | | | | eyed head the questions have been re-iterating at a |
| contemporary artists working in Britain today. His style | | | | matching pace. |
| of work has been influential to the art scene, not only | | | | In an interesting excerpt from Julian Opie's Tate gallery |
| due to its method of creation but also because of its | | | | publication in 2004, he states that he is interested in the |
| accessibility to the general public and its shameless | | | | 'balance of the generic and the specific' hence his |
| attempt to splinter the rickety pedestal that 'high' art | | | | reduction to lines and repeated movements. This is his |
| sits so plumply upon. | | | | personal desire to step outside of the 'specific' gallery |
| With the opening of his new online shop, never before | | | | environment and its often stagnant pond of simplicity |
| has Julian been so nakedly exposed to ridicule or | | | | and to embrace different mediums and less obvious |
| indeed capital gain. They often go hand in hand when it | | | | platforms. |
| comes to creativity in any form, especially in art. It is | | | | Whatever your stance on this situation and the |
| difficult, however, for one to question an artist's | | | | credibility of the artist's articulate explanations, I am |
| pedigree when they have work held in many major | | | | plenty sure the online shop will be of interest to you. |
| museum collections across the world including The | | | | Especially if you are after a baby bib, fridge magnet or |
| Tate and MoMA. Question they will though, that is a | | | | a desirable wall sticker! |