RIDGEFIELD, CT.- The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum will present Sara dancing (sparkly top) by artist Julian Opie , the sixth sculpture in the Main Street Sculpture Project series, on the front lawn at The Aldrich through October 1, 2006. For this work, Opie uses a light-emitting diode (L.E.D.), which will depict a woman in constant motion as she dances on Ridgefield's Main Street 24-hours a day. Both stylized and iconic, the sculpture is 73" high by 43" wide by 10" deep, and will attract notice from people driving and walking to and from town.
Julian Opie was born in 1958 in London, where he currently lives and works. He attended Goldsmith's School of Art in London from 1979-82. He has exhibited internationally. New York's City Hall Park recently presented a major outdoor exhibition by the artist entitled Animals, Buildings, Cars, and People.

The following is an excerpt from Julian Opie (J.O), Tate Gallery publication 2004 by Mary Horlock, "The computer began to assume a central role in Opie’s practice: it allowed him to develop his systems in abstract space before realising them in actuality. His key concepts were unchanged: the balancing of the generic and the specific, pitting realism against representation, and the working through of serial forms. Computer technology enabled Opie to develop new subjects whilst simultaneously expanding and refining his symbolic vocabulary to a degree of perfection. Concordantly, his installations became more multifarious in nature, translating his experience of people, cities and landscapes into a universal language of signs, brightly coloured and immaculately presented. Opie would select from and combine different bodies of work."

Also opening at The Aldrich in May will be Anselm Kiefer: Velimir Chlebnikov, thirty paintings by the renowned German painter housed in a pavilion imagined by the artist, and Land Mine; work by Laleh Khorramian, Wangechi Tutu, and Michael Zansky.