Julian Opie review – we need so much more from art than this empty irony

Pitzhanger Manor, London
Staged in Sir John Soane’s Ealing mansion, Opie’s brand of dot-eyed simplicity – epitomised here by a sterile model town showpiece – is stuck in the 90s

A Julian Opie woman is striding towards the facade of Sir John Soane’s mansion in Ealing. This animated, larger-than-life figure in the forecourt is a flat sculpture for the digital age, flickering in white lines on a black screen mounted on a plinth. If you don’t know what I mean by a Julian Opie woman, she’s a line drawing in profile of someone in the street, stylish and contemporary. Other women in the show look at phones or tote bags in similarly simplified delineations.

I couldn’t help wondering what happens when she reaches the house. Will she bump her head? Or will the structure crumble into ruins under the impact of the 21st century? For Opie’s exhibition at Soane’s Pitzhanger Manor is not so much an encounter between new and old as a car crash in which a high-end motor smashes into a centuries-old yew tree.

Related: Julian Opie's portraits in motion: this is what genius looks like – review

Julian Opie is at Pitzhanger Manor, London, from 25 June until 24 October.

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