PB: On the initial "surface" reading of many of your works there appears to be an oscillation between minimalism and a post modern reference to pop art iconography. What were the early influences that began to inspire the construction of this particular language of 'seeming' simplification?
JO: Well, those are the things that I grew out of – my generation, again, those two bastions of contemporary life back in the eighties were both things that tended to be what you had to break as an artist, what you built from, If that's how you see it, but I'm not certain that I do. I receive emails from people asking me if they can use my "style"and would I mind if they copied it, and I think, '‘what is my 'style'?’' I don't have a "style" I do what I do. The idea that something exists called minimalism, or anything else, is less the function of the artist. I think it is more important and useful to view artists' in terms of what it is they do instead of these vague terms grouping works together, like minimalism. Certainly everything I am doing and have done is built very firmly on what other artists have done and my enthusiasm for that. Those moments are over anyway, but people can't help but to continue and mull over and discuss what those artists' did and the world that has been drawn from it. In some ways the world has changed a lot and in some ways it has changed very little. The Pop side of things comes from two angles, perhaps one comes from the "mood" of the work that I do, or the processes involved. But when you work like that, or you are a person like that, it's hard to define, whether you are Paul McCarthy or Jeff Koons, or Bill Viola – you can sense the essence - whether it has a sense of ridiculousness or doesn't or a sense of humour or doesn't. A lot of art trips back and forth across those things in a fantastic way and I can only hope to deal with those difficult elements - that my work itself often has those very elements that people relate to Pop artists’. And even though the work doesn’t aim to be ‘'Pop’' I think there are times when the human mind relates all the visuals that it is aware of. This is the way I go around making work; purely through observation and most of the world looks like Pop art.
In the next article Julian Opie continues to explanation of his works
