Galleria Michela Rizzo
The Armory Show 2017

Roman Opalka’s work, to which he has dedicated his life, manifests itself in a process of recording a progression that both documents time and also defines it. It began on a single date in 1965, the one on which he undertook his first “Detail”. Each "Detail" is a part of a greater idea conceived on that date. His work records the progression to infinity, through the first and the last number painted on the canvas. He inscribed the progression of numbers beginning with one, proceeding to infinity, on canvases of the same size, 77.17 x 53.15 in (196 x 135 cm), in white by hand with a paintbrush. Since 1972 he has been making each canvas' background about 1% whiter each time. Thus the moment arrived when he painted white on white. Since 2008, he has painted in white on a white background, which he called "blanc mérité" (white well earned). At Armory Show Galleria Michela Rizzo presents the tryptic OPALKA 1965/1 - ∞ Détail 5157847 - 5175777, Détail 5175778 - 5193062, Détail 5193063 - 5210330. The tryptic will be shown with a serie of auto portraits: after each work session in his studio, Roman Opalka took a photograph of his face in front of the "Detail" that he has been working on. The artworks will be accompanied by a tape recording of the artist’s voice saying the numbers out loud as he wrote the Details.