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Dennis Oppenheim

Dennis Oppenheim first gained recognition for his Conceptual work in the 1960s and '70s, making Earth and body art, videos and performance pieces. An early practitioner of body art, Oppenheim often utilized his body as an art form, favoring brief, performative pieces over durable mediums such as painting or sculpture. As his career progressed, Oppenheim gave up body art in favor of large-scale, Conceptual sculpture and land art or earthworks. Inspired by architectural forms and grandiosity, his sculptures often incorporated moving industrial parts, casts of animals, uprooted buildings, water effects, and even fireworks.

Some of his famous large-scale, ephemeral outdoor projects included abstract formations carved in wheat fields, a gargantuan white square composed of salt, and an enormous pile of dirt with embedded wooden steps. Toward the end of his career, Oppenheim focused on making objects, installations, and public sculpture. The artist's sculptures were even commissioned for the 1988 Summer Olympics in Korea. Oppenheim died in 2011, and he is considered a pioneer in earthworks and Conceptual art.
Born 1938
Hometown Electric City, WA
Lives and Works New York, NY
Education
MFA, Stanford University, Palo Alto, CA, 1965
BFA, School of Arts and Crafts, Oakland, CA, 1965
Permanent Collection

Centre Pompidou - Musée National d´Art Moderne, Paris, France
Kunstmuseum Basel, Basel, Switzerland
Museo d´arte contemporanea Castello di Rivoli, Turin, Italy
The Israel Museum, Jerusalem, Isreal
Queensland Art Gallery / Gallery of Modern Art, Brisbane, Australia
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art - SFMOMA, San Francisco, CA
Stedelijk Museum voor Actuele Kunst, Gent, Belgium
Tate Modern, London, England
Vestsjællands Kunstmuseum, Sorø, Denmark

Representing Galleries

ACE Gallery, Los Angeles, CA
Stux Gallery, New York, NY

Articles

A Few Questions for Sterling Lawrence
A Few Questions for Sterling Lawrence

The Chicago artist makes verbose lamps and casts elbows in his effort to answer one question: "What are the limits of a visual experience?"

Land Art Road Trip, Part 2: Washington State
Land Art Road Trip, Part 2: Washington State

For the second installment of our site-specific journey across America, we're venturing to Pacific Northwest to see Robert Morris's Johnson Pit No. 30 and Herbert Bayer's Mill Creek Canyon Earthworks.

6 of the Most Important Artist-Run Magazines
6 of the Most Important Artist-Run Magazines

Some of the most innovative artworks of the past half-century took the form of magazines. Here are a few you'll want to flip through (only one, alas, is still in print).

10 Exhibitions That Changed Contemporary Art
10 Exhibitions That Changed Contemporary Art

From the groundbreaking "Primary Structures" at the Jewish Museum (now being reinterpreted in a new show) to "WACK!" at L.A. MOCA in 2007, here's a survey of exhibitions that upended the way we look at art today—and how artists make it, too.

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