Belonging to his monumental series 1965/1 – ∞, Detail 3047272-3065460 is conceptually ambitious project to visualize infinity and time. On top of a grey background, Opalka has painted the numbers 3,047,272 to 3,065,460 in white paint. In the unquestionably human script of the numeric figures, Opalka’s hand and presence comes through the present work. As the figures progress along each line, their chromatic intensity periodically wanes as Opalka’s brush contains less and less paint before being replenished. The intricate repetition of the process leads to a dynamic and visually compelling surface texture, while also testifying to the artist’s enless pursuit.

Beginning the series in 1965, at the time of Opalka’s death in 2011 the artist had written over five million numbers (over thirty-eight million digits); the final number written was 5,607,249 across 233 paintings. Each new canvas, which the artist called a ‘detail’, took up counting where the last left off and were each made in in identical dimensions – 196 by 135 cm, the size of the artist’s studio door in Warsaw. In his efforts to catalogue limitlessness, Opalka immersed himself in crucial philosophical, historical and scientific concepts. With each line of numbers, Opalka's canvas traces time in a manner similar to Cy Twombly's blackboard paintings, visualising the artist's hand in pigment on canvas as it once moved through time and space. Endowed with elegant simplicity, Detail 30473272-6065460 reflects the highly philosophical and meditative character of the project.

Throughout his career, Opalka was greatly influenced through his respect for and relationships with Italian artists, primarily given his deep engagement with the ZERO group. Founded in the late 1950s, ZERO was a movement of immense historical importance which presaged later developments in Conceptualism, Minimalism, and Land Art. Through his participation in ZERO, Opalka collaborated and engaged in a creative exchange with pioneering Italian artists including Lucio Fontana, Piero Manzoni, and Yves Klein. Works such as the present attest to the febrile atmosphere of this artistic community, subsequent dialogue, and the conceptual progression which these relationships engendered. Opalka's oeuvre also parallels the work of On Kawara, whose Today series similarly catalogued time. Moreover, looking at the work of artists such as Alighiero Boetti, one can observe Opalka’s likewise influence over artists who share his preoccupation with numbers, sequencing, and exploring the impossibility of comprehending the infinite through art.

Within Opalka’s oeuvre, the present work stands as an impressive record of the artist’s astonishing philosophical and creative feat: a unique and unsurpassed record of a constant striving towards the infinite, and correspondingly, of immortality itself. Despite the number of rejections of tradition present in his work, and that many have struggled to define his work as anything other than ‘Opalkian’, the Details series does seem to find a place on the line of progression of art theory and forms. The artist himself said, “it’s by abstracting myself from the formal problems of painting that I place my concept on the chess board.” (Roman Opalka, quoted in Christine Savinel, Jacques Roubaud and Bernard Noël, Eds., Roman Opalka, Paris 1996, p.11) As the numbers vibrate across the picture plane, the viewer is confronted by the interplay of the interminable issues of infinite time and perhaps continuing physical presence. Along with its rhythmic and serene qualities, this work conceptually resonates beyond its physical existence and remains a crucially important contemporary masterpiece.