Roman Opalka. 1965/1- Self-portraits (ing)

Roman Opalka is one of the most radical and famous conceptual artists to date. In his life long project entitled Opalka 1965/1-? he paints consecutive numbers in white colour on canvases of consistently equal dimensions (195 x 135 cm), since 1965. At this time Opalka has reached the number 5 590 000. On the occasion of Opalka´s 80th birthday ZAK | BRANICKA presents eight of his photographic self-portraits. This is the first exhibition of his work in Berlin in seventeen years. Opalka operates on the principles of progression and the visual and pictorial representation of time. "The foundation of my work, to which I have devoted my life, manifests itself in a process of recording a progression that both documents time, and also defines it," states the artist. This decades long project is to be understood as one complete work. He began in 1965, with the so-called Details-painting on canvas—and expanded this idea into different media over the years. Integral to this project are his photographic self-portraits. Taken at the end of each work-session we see Opalka with the canvas he is working on in this exact moment in the background. These photographs are entitled Opalka 1965/1-? Detail as well—appended to the title is the number that he stopped painting at in that exact moment in time.