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Dennis Oppenheim




 

Dennis Oppenheim

Born in Electric City, Washington, 1938.
School of Arts and Crafts, Oakland (B.F.A., 1965) and Stanford University, Palo Alto, (M.F.A., 1965).
Lives and works in New York City.

The artistic trajectory of Dennis Oppenheim has always been characterized by its incorrigible discontinuity, motivated then as today by an intensely adventurous curiosity.   Following his earthworks (1967-69 and body-works came the installations (from 1972 onwards), using puppets as their main theme (the harrowing piece "Attempt to Raise Hell" at the Pompidou Center).   Later on, at the end of the seventies, Oppenheim produced what he calls his "machine pieces" which, by denying the object its sculptural status, are presented as complex constructions, systems open to both an aleatory and an enigmatic mode of functioning...   There is an interesting progression from the early machine pieces which seemed infused with a confidence in rationality and in the possibility of grasping the structure of the mind to the late works which were designed to literally blow up and which seem to celebrate the triumph of irrationality and chaos.

Art Press, January 1993, Dennis Oppenheim: A Process of Discontinuity, by Eleanor Heartney


 

Rocked Circle - Fear - 1971


 

Two Stage Transfer Drawing - 1971


 

Two Stage Transfer Drawing (Advancing to a Future State)
1971


 

Two Stage Transfer Drawing (Advancing to a Future State)
1971


 

Forming Sounds
1971


 

Device to Root Out Evil
1997


 

Parque de la Memoria - Buenos Aires  - Monumento al escape


 

Table Piece - 1975


 

Early Morning Blues - 1977


 

Diamond Cutter’s Wedding - 1979


 

Exit for the South Bronx - 1979


 

Revenge - 1979


 

Saturn Up-Draft - 1979


 

Way Station Launching an Obsolete Power
(A Thought Collision Factory in Pursuit of a Journey) (A Clip in a Rifle - A Weapon) - 1980


 

Impulse Reactor
A Device for Detecting, Entering and Converting Past Lies Traveling Underground and in the Air - 1980


 

Crystal Recorder (Stroking the Throat of Tornado Diane) (An Early Warning System) - 1980


 

Launching Structure #2 An Armature for Projection (From the Fireworks Series) - 1982


 

Sleeping Dogs


 

Object with a Memory - 1983


 

Blue Tattoo - 1999


 

Crystal Mountain - 2005


 

Enlarged Object to Cast Light in Between the Toes - 2005


 

Attempt to Raise Hell - 1974


 

Spirit Notes - 1989


 

Hot Voices - 1989


 

Digestion - 1989


 

Above the Wall of Electrocution - 1989


 

Woman with Cubist Tendencies - 1993


 

Village Around Piss Lake - 1993


 

Galloping through the Wheat - 1993


 

Blood Breathe - 1996


 

Buildings Poking their Eyes Out 


 

Blue Collar 


 

Marriage Tree 


 

Lightening Bolt Man - 2001


 

Brush Building 


 

Newton Discovering Gravity - 1984


 

Impersonation Station - 1988


 

Device To Root Out Evil - 1997


 

Drinking Structure with Exposed Kidney Pool - 1998


 

Performance Piece - 2000


 

Bus Home - 2002


 

Flying Garden 


 

Mobile Lighthouse


 

Electric Field 


 

Reading Position for Second Degree Burn - 1970


 

Arm and Wire - 1969


 

Cancelled Crop - 1969


 

Annual Rings - 1968


 

Landslide - 1968