Roman Opalka: Time and Integers

In 1965, Roman Opalka, then 35, embarked on a seemingly simple painting, beginning from one and counting in a sequence of integers. It was the moment his work and life became a one-way hourglass, symbolic of the passage of time. The idea came to him while sitting at Café Bristol in Warsaw, waiting for his wife.

The next day he went into his studio. His entire process was methodical. He chose a number “0” brush, painted the canvas pure black, and used white for the numbers. He began in the upper left corner and when he finished on the lower right, he would sign the canvas OPALKA 1965/1 – ∞ (infinity).

“There is but one painting, but one concept. My raison d’etre relies on an extreme determination to realize one and only one thing during the rest of my lifetime. A single thing, a single life.”

Becoming an Artist

Opalka was born in Hocquincort, France, in 1931 to Polish émigrés. In 1937, the family moved back to Poland only to be deported when it fell under German occupation. Somehow they survived the camp, although he never talked of his time there. He studied lithography at the School of Art and Design in Łódź before earning his degree from the Academy of Fine Arts in Warsaw.

He began experimenting from lithography into the abstract. Between 1959 and 1965, Opalka painted his series of Études sur le Mouvement (Movement Studies) and Chronomes. Small canvases of figures, no representations or geometric repetitions, monochrome in shades, only minute variations, and slips of color – red was always his temptation. It was what he called “a pictoral sacrifice” and what he saw as his first attempts at grasping time.

Opalka, Telling the Time Exhibit (2019)

“Man has a faculty which accompanies all his interactions with nature, a faculty of viewing his life mathematically, seeing in the world repetitions of sequences, casual systems in time.”

The First Détail

He moved on to a bigger canvas, measuring 196 x 135 cm, corresponding to his height and the width of the door of his Warsaw studio. His first Détail, as he would call them, shows the progression of numbers in narrow horizontal rows, integers separated by a brief gap, line by line by hand, never using a ruler. He waited until each application of paint was dry before dipping the brush again, but never in the middle of a number. The white fades out in segments, like ruffled waves of water, an inversed tattoo of integers. Each painting – as all his Détails, as his life – represents a fragment of a continuum punctuated by small incidents.

Opalka, Détail1-35327

“Every time I add a number I change the whole thing just as every minute changes us.”

It took him seven months to finish the first Détail.

The Artist’s Studio

As with all his canvases, each measuring the same, his studio was reproduced everywhere he went. Whether in Warsaw, Paris, Berlin, Bazérac or New York. Everything was set in the same layout, the location of the spotlight, the reflectors and the easel he used. Everything was organized, measured down to the centimeter so there was exact continuity both in his life and work. The canvas was always hung just slightly above his head. When he came to the U.S. and found it impossible to convert to inches, he had all his canvases made at the same workshop in Turin.

“For a long time I wanted to start a piece that could be the most rigorous of works possible, but not until 1965 was I able to structure my thoughts and devise a project that would respond to this desire for rigor.”

Opalka in Bazérac (1995)

From Black to Gray

A few years into his project, Opalka switched from black to gray canvases. He explained that gray was not a symbolic choice and a less emotional color. Then, he began adding 1% white with each subsequent canvas so that the surfaces would become increasing lighter. By 2008, his canvas was significantly white but his numbers still whiter. Envisioning the eventual disappearance of his numbers, he predicted he would arrive at white on white, or what he called blanc mérité, a “well-earned white,” when he reaches the number 7,777,777, “a horizon of sevens.”

Opalka, Détail3029180-3047372

It took Opalka almost 20 years to get from 1,000,000 to 3,000,000. He had estimated it would take more than 30 years to get to 10,000,000 and 450 years to get to 100 million.

It would be his tabula rasa, a reversal to the beginning where there would be no distinction between the symbols and the canvas, just a plane of invisibility and blankness.

Opalka, Painting ∞ Exhibit (2014)

Notice the gradual transformation from gray to white.

Photographs

Also around this time, he decided to photograph himself at the end of each day’s work. This, too, was methodical. He used the same white shirt for every photo, momentarily replacing what he had on that day. He always closed the window shutters to limit light. The spotlight and camera were mounted on a stand underneath an open square white umbrella. He would step up, his face just above the shoulders in the viewfinder, the current canvas behind him, remote cable in his left hand, and everything else out of sight. There would be a click and a flash. He noted the number he had reached when the photo was taken before replacing his shirt and putting it behind the easel.

Opalka, Self-Photographs

After he finished one of his Détails, he would choose a photo from the contact sheets to accompany each painting. The photos, like his integers, are as much a testament to the passage of time. The years visible on his face, his hair gradually turning white – like his canvases.

Recordings

While he had always counted along while painting, he began recording himself in 1972. The voice is in Polish, pronouncing the numbers one by one. His voice was low and level – monotonous. But there’s also incredible emotion in the continued recitation of integers.

Opalka, Vinyl Recording

The recordings offer a more complete documentation of his ongoing work and would add an auditory dimension to his visual art. He became involved in the way his exhibitions were displayed. Instead of just hanging up his work on their walls, curators had to give him an entire space to plan.

He would place sound sources all around. They were usually a mix of recordings, a randomness in counting. It was a simultaneous stimulation – the linear time of paintings and a back-and-forth of integers. He took the idea from Heidegger’s philosophy in which he compared the aspect of time with going for a walk when the feet go one way but the mind in many directions.

“The sonic dimension is like the varnish on a canvas. The sound creates a unity. Instead of going into a space with pictures, you enter the picture. It’s very intimate. You’re entering my life. You can see and feel and hear every dimension.”

Opalka created different representations of time. One that is continuous and another with a rhythm of its own. His voice and vision filled those rooms.

Reaching a Million

It’s in these recordings that you hear the exact moment when he painted 1,000,000. His voice is tense. In an interview, he described how he felt – the weakness in his body, the faster beating of his heart, and the shaking of his breath and world as he went from painting six 9’s to six 0’s. It took him seven years to get here.

“It was violent and astonishing. Anyone who tries to understand me can feel the same kind of emotion. My Détail is an object which gives off an energy you can feel.”

The Painter’s Process

While it took Opalka seven months to finish his first Détail, by years five and six, he was painting ten a year. It took certain amounts of experimentation. At first, he kept using the same brush but it eventually made some numbers harder to read. In his early Détails, the looped eights began to blur with some circles almost filled in. So he changed to a new brush with each new canvas. But he has kept all the brushes, cleaned and stored in a box – in layers like his numbers.

“Art has a lot in common with madness. After all, why should one get involved with art? You can live normally like everyone else…”

When he finished a Détail, he started another one right away, unable to withstand the sense of an ending.

Mistakes and Variations

His painting was not perfect. He missed digits, skipped integers or moved backward. Sometimes he would mistake his own numbers – a seven for a nine. By the time he saw them, it would be too late.

“In life, when you find you’ve got it wrong, you can’t go back. Time is irreversible.”

Opalka, Détail993460–1017875

The seminal Détail that broke the 1 million mark. But look closely - the two numbers between 1,002,235 and 1,002,238 were written incorrectly.

In the paintings are variations, sometimes caused by external factors, including the humidity which changes the mixture of water and paint. Gradually, slowly, the shaking moved from his heart to his hands, then to the numbers and the horizontal lines. He used to paint for eight hours a day if not more. In time, he would not be able to do it for more than an hour or so, unable to stand for longer periods. There were many times when he thought the work would destroy him physically, battling eye strains and heart troubles. But he had resolved to a life devoted to a single numerical sequence long ago.

“I wanted to paint a work in which each canvas carried along the emotions of a single whole. These are situations which would be impossible in any other creative activity, emotions where the physical and intellectual commitment is like walking to the end of the earth. It’s that logic that gives me the strength to continue. It’s important that my last Détail should not be finished by me, but by my life.”