Julian Opie is hot right now because he did the cover of The Best of Blur. The four neat portraits from the CD, posters and Top of the Pops backdrop appear in the window of the Lisson Gallery. The band's faces are mocked a little by their reduction to empty black lines and easy-match colours; they are captioned - with false workerism - Alex, bassist; Dave, drummer; Graham, guitarist; and Damon, singer.
Yet in reality, these portraits are smugly celebratory. They imply that Blur are just like us, dress like us, think like us - if we dress right and are seen at all the right places. The people in Opie's show, with their cut-out hairstyles and perfunctory noses, all belong in the same world. He imagines them nude on the beach, or driving through mountains and towns.
Wait a minute, though. This is not pop. This is the culture of the contemporary British middle class, to whom Opie has appointed himself a slickly ironic Gainsborough. The very thing about his portraits that makes them jokey - the assimilation of everyone to the same conventions - also establishes group identity. Opie has everyone in designer-casual clothes, just as Gainsborough portrayed every gentleman in a wig, and the effect is the same: to establish membership of a group, in Gainsborough's case the 18th-century gentry; in Opie's - well, people who buy The Best of Blur.
It's interesting that Opie never portrays anyone really glamorous. Wolfgang Tillmans and Gary Hume (whom you might think similar to Opie because they celebrate beautiful contemporary people) depict real icons and stars among the young clubbers and artists; the lustre of a Kate Moss has a destabilising effect and is anything but reassuring to the viewer.
Opie, by contrast, never acknowledges that anyone is more or less good-looking or socially powerful than the level playing field he allows. Anyone is welcome to his local gastro-pub so long as they don't act big. This goes for Blur too. Blur are fine with that because they are not starry or cocky. They are the boys next door.
Opie's exhibition is contemporary British art at its worst, over-friendly with its knowing audience and flattering to nationalist cultural delusions. Try saying this with a straight face: "Blur are going to be remembered as a great band, and Opie's album cover is right up there with Warhol's peel-it-and-see banana for The Velvet Underground." You wonder how long art can ride this wave of fashion before it crashes down and the good is drowned along with the mediocre.
Until March 17. Details: 020-7724 2739.
