Roman Opalka's Lifelong Obsession with Painting Time

Roman Opalka (1931-2011), a Franco-Polish artist, dedicated his life to painting the passage of time through an infinite sequence of numbers. Born on August 27, 1931, in Abbeville-Saint-Lucien, France, he was shaped by his education at the Scuola Pubblica Superiore Delle Arti Plastiche in Lodz (now the Academy of Fine Arts of W. Strzemiński) during the Stalinist period (1949-1956). In 1965, he began his series "Opalka 1965/1-∞," painting white numbers on a black background, starting with 1 and ending at 35,328. Over time, he lightened the background by adding 1% white to each subsequent canvas, aiming for white on white. He also documented himself with black-and-white self-portraits and audio recordings of him reciting the numbers. Opalka described himself as a "pittore clessidra" (hourglass painter), influenced by Strzemiński's theory of Unism and the concept of "powidok" (visual ghost). He set a horizon of 7,777,777 but died at number 5,607,249. His first and last Détail were exhibited together in 2019 in Milan for the show "Roman Opałka. Dire il tempo," curated by Chiara Bertola and organized by BUILDING and Fondazione Querini Stampalia of Venice.