Julian Opie, This is Shanoza, 2006, AGO

This collection of Julian Opie vinyl cutouts is on display at the AGO in the Henry Moore Sculpture wing, paired with Moore's praised and treasured sculpture collection.

As a big fan of Julian Opie, I was excited his work was coming to the AGO, and I went to go check it out.

However, reading the comments placed by other patrons, I saw that the consensus thought is that the Opie pieces were inappropriate for the setting. Comment cards exclaimed "Julian Opie is a pervert. The Curator should take this down immediately," and "Trashy strippers should not be placed anywhere near such magnificent sculptures like Moore's."

The Torontoist (www.torontoist.com) exclaims "They are truly a hideous and unnecessary distraction from the Moore pieces and the AGO is in love with the disaster."

Peter Goddard of The Toronto Star comments "The silence of Moore's work is deafening. This may be the work's one unequivocal triumph, at least to me, not being a big fan of the stuff. Had the AGO pumped in some hardcore pole-dancing techno pop to make the Opie-Moore clash even more brazen, Moore's work might be heard in a different way – and the AGO might have even generated a real controversy."

As seperate artists, I really enjoyed Opie's work. It is a great commentary of the depiction of women in art, and for that he should be praised. The work was not originally created for pairing with Henry Moore's sculptures.

I felt that the pairing between Moore and Opie didn't make much sense, or that the reason did not seem immediately obvious, other than the correlation between Moore's reclining nude sculptures and the poses of the women in Opie's series.

The exhibition was missing something. The statement presented by the AGO Curator about the pieces only gave a brief background of who Julian Opie was, and nothing about why it was paired with Henry Moore.

If there was more explanation or hints towards the meaning of the pairing, the exhibition would have been so much more effective.