1965/1-00 detail-1602183-1728670

In 1965 Opalka began painting a process of counting - from one to infinity. Starting in the top left-hand corner of the canvas and finishing in the bottom right-hand corner, the tiny numbers are painted in horizontal rows. Each new canvas, which the artist calls a 'detail', takes up counting where the last left off. Each 'detail' is the same size (196 x 135 cm), the dimension of his studio door in Warsaw. All details have the same title, 1965/1-00; the idea does not date although the artist has pledged his life to its execution: 'All my work is a single thing, the description from number one to infinity. A single thing, a single life.'