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Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

American, 1938-2011
ennis Oppenheim (Electric City, September 6, 1938 - New York, January 21, 2011) was an American sculptor, conceptual artist, performance artist, land art artist and photographer. He earned his BFA from the California College of Arts and Crafts in Oakland, California in 1964 and an MFA from Stanford University in Palo Alto, California in 1965. He moved to New York in 1966, where he first taught art at various schools, before having solo exhibitions in New York in 1968 when he was 30. Oppenheim's early work tended to focus on performances of humans and animals in his shows. In the early 1970s, he was a forerunner in the use of video and film in his performances. Around 1980, Oppenheim shifted his focus from body art and performances to the creation of monumental conceptual arts installations. He participated in both the Venice Biennale and the Johannesburg Biennale in 1997. The artist lived and worked in New York and had been married to American sculptress Alice Aycock since 1982. He died on January 21, 2011 from liver cancer. Oppenheim was represented in the Netherlands with a monumental work in the Sculpture Park of the Kröller-Müller Museum in Otterlo: Station for detaining and blinding radioactive horses, stage II (1981-1982). Due to the poor condition of the work in 1990, it was decided to return it to the artist in 1992. In 1996, a selection of Oppenheim's work was shown in a summer exhibition.
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Artist: Dennis A. Oppenheim
Target, Conceptual Land Art Lithograph by Dennis Oppenheim
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Dennis Oppenheim, American (1938 - 2011) Title: Target Year: 1981 Medium: Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 150 Size: 41.25 in. x 29.75 in. (104.78 cm x 75.5...
Category

1980s Conceptual Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

Construction Drawing III (Conceptual Art, Mechanical, Engineer, Machine)
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Kansas City, MO
Signed by the artist, Edition 16/75 COA provided Dennis Oppenheim (September 6, 1938 – January 21, 2011) was an American conceptual artist, performance artist, earth artist, sculpto...
Category

1960s Conceptual Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

Construction Drawing IV (Conceptual Art, Mechanical, Engineer, Machine)
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Kansas City, MO
Signed by the artist, Edition 16/75 COA provided Dennis Oppenheim (September 6, 1938 – January 21, 2011) was an American conceptual artist, performance artist, earth artist, sculpto...
Category

1970s Modern Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

Construction Drawing V (Conceptual Art, Mechanical, Engineer, Machine)
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Kansas City, MO
Signed by the artist, Edition 16/75 COA provided Dennis Oppenheim (September 6, 1938 – January 21, 2011) was an American conceptual artist, performance artist, earth artist, sculpto...
Category

1960s Modern Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

Yvon Lambert Gallery Poster (Hand Signed and Addressed by Dennis Oppenheim)
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in New York, NY
Dennis Oppenheim Directed Seeding -Wheat, Historic Yvon Lambert Gallery Poster (Hand Signed and Addressed by Dennis Oppenheim), 1969 Offset lithograph poster. Hand signed, inscribed. Postmarked and addressed to Oppenheim's dealer, John Gibson 23 × 16 inches Hand Signed and inscribed by Dennis Oppenheim lower right in blue marker in 2006, hand addressed by Dennis Oppenheim in 1969 in red marker Unframed This is an extremely uncommon vintage poster/mailer announcing the May 20th, 1969 opening reception (Vernissage) for the exhibition of works by American conceptual art pioneer Dennis Oppenheim at the Yvon Lambert Gallery in Paris. The poster is historic in that it was originally mailed to John Gibson, the East 67th Street dealer, who famously gave Dennis Oppenheim his first New York exhibition in 1968, and it is hand addressed to Gibson, bearing the original Paris, France postmark of 1969. It is, exceptionally, hand signed and dedicated by Dennis Oppenheim to a collector who acquired the poster from John Gibson's collection, and then secured Dennis Oppenheim's autograph in 2006, making this an especially valuable collectors item. More information about the project from the Tate Gallery archives, which acquired the work: This work brings together two interventions Oppenheim created on a field owned by farmer Albert Waalken in Finsterwolde, north-eastern Holland, in 1969. It comprises four distinct elements mounted on board: a colour photograph of a wheatfield being sowed by a tractor in parallel curving lines seen from high up; a negative image in black and white of a map of the area of Finsterwolde onto which two sections of text have been collaged; and two black and white aerial photographs of the same field being traversed by a tractor cutting an X into the wheat. The first two elements relate to the action Directed Seeding. For this the field was seeded according to a line plotted by following the road from the village of Finsterwolde, the location of the field, to Nieuweschans, another village where the farmer’s storage silo for wheat was located. Oppenheim reduced this curved line by a factor of six in order to direct the trajectory of seeding. The tractor then carved a series of curved parallel lines on the surface of the field as it dug up earth and scattered seed. From an aerial perspective the patterning of parallel lines may be viewed as a form of line drawing on the landscape. The precise location of the field and the silo are indicated on the map, showing the trajectory of the road. The two sections of text collaged onto the upper portion of the map briefly describe the two interventions. Explaining the action Cancelled Crop, the artist wrote: In September the field was harvested in the form of an X. The grain was isolated in its raw state, further processing was withheld. This project poses an interaction upon media during the early stages of processing. Planting and cultivating my own material is like mining ones own pigment (for paint) – I can direct the later stages of development at will. In this case the material is planted and cultivated for the sole purpose of withholding it from a product-oriented system. Isolating this grain from further processing (production of food stuffs) becomes like stopping raw pigment from becoming an illusionistic force on canvas. The esthetic is in the raw material prior to refinement, and since no organization is imposed through refinement, the material’s destiny is bred with its origin. (Quoted from artist’s statement in Tate acquisition file.) Directed Seeding and Cancelled Crop are two separate works, brought together in several different versions of which Tate’s is one. The collage presents three ways in which human action may marks the land. For the first two, agricultural machinery is used to create straight lines, in the process of harvesting as in the X of Cancelled Crop, or curved lines, during the process of planting seed in the contours photographed for Directed Seeding. The map shows a third (and more ancient) way of marking the land, through the construction of roads. The use of the landscape – natural, industrial or urban – as a canvas on which to act is typical of Oppenheim’s work in the late 1960s and early 1970s. In a related action, Directed Harvest, 1966 (Tate T07590) and Directed Harvest 1968 (Kröller-Müller Museum, Otterlo, Netherlands), the artist caused a field to be harvested in linear patterns which he then had photographed in its progressive stages. In Reverse Processing: Cement Transplant, East River, NY, 1970, 1978 (Tate T07591) Oppenheim drew large crosses on the roofs of barges transporting raw cement that he found moored on the New York East River banks. All these works centre on process as an agent of change and utilise materials, elements and locations on which the artist can have no permanent claim, making them deliberately ephemeral. Such actions as seeding a crop and harvesting it several months later operate within time parameters dependent on the cycles of the seasons rather than the will of man, mixing human processes with those of nature. Oppenheim’s analogy between the prevention of a crop from entering the food chain and the halting of the expressive, ‘illusionistic’ force of paint deconstructs the sophisticated processes of art-making and the food industry to the elemental notion of making simple marks on the environment. In this way, the artist highlights contemporary man’s dependency on complex chains...
Category

1960s Conceptual Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Offset

Devil's Hole
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Dennis Oppenheim, American (1938 - 2011) Title: Devil's Hole Year: 1978 Medium: Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 150 Size: 41.25 in. x 29.75 in. (104.78 cm ...
Category

1970s Conceptual Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

Nebraska Project, Lithograph by Dennis Oppenheim 1979
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Long Island City, NY
Nebraska Project Dennis Oppenheim, American (1938–2011) Date: 1979 Lithograph on Johannot Paper, signed and numbered in pencil Edition of 150, AP 30 Size: 41 x 30 in. (104.14 x 76.2 cm)
Category

1970s Conceptual Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

Whirlpool - Eye of the Storm, Lithograph by Dennis Oppenheim
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Dennis Oppenheim, American (1938 - 2011) Title: Whirlpool - Eye of the Storm Year: 1978 Medium: Lithograph on Johannot Wove Paper, signed and ...
Category

1970s Conceptual Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

Time Line, Contemporary Lithograph by Dennis A. Oppenheim
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Dennis Oppenheim, American (1938 - 2011) Title: Time Line Kent, Maine Year: 1979 Medium: Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 150, AP 3...
Category

1970s Conceptual Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

"Wishing the Mountains Madness", 1978, Lithograph by Dennis Oppenheim
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Dennis Oppenheim, American (1938 - 2011) Title: Wishing the Mountains Madness Year: 1978 Medium: Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 150 Size: 41.25 in. x 29.7...
Category

1970s Conceptual Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

"Tar Wells", 1978, Lithograph by Dennis Oppenheim
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Dennis Oppenheim, American (1938 - 2011) Title: Tar Wells Year: 1978 Medium: Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 100 Size: 39 x 27 in. (99.06 x 68.58 cm)
Category

1970s Land Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

"Two Ways to Skin a Cat", 1978, Lithograph by Dennis Oppenheim
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Dennis Oppenheim, American (1938 - 2011) Title: Two Ways to Skin a Cat Year: 1978 Medium: Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 100 Size: 39 in. x 27 in. (99.06 ...
Category

1970s Conceptual Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

Information Lines (conceptual environmentalist Land Art lithograph)
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Wilton Manors, FL
Artist: Dennis Oppenheim, American (1938 - 2011) Title: Information Lines, 1981. Medium: Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil A/P 9/30. Artist's Proof. Size: 41.25 in. x 29.7...
Category

1980s Conceptual Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

Mud Flat, Contemporary Lithograph by Dennis Oppenheim
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Dennis Oppenheim Title: Mud Flat Year: 1977 Medium: Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 100 Size: 41 in. x 29 in. (104.14 cm x 73.66 cm)
Category

1970s Conceptual Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

"Dry Wells", 1978, Lithograph by Dennis Oppenheim
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Dennis Oppenheim, American (1938 - 2011) Title: Dry Wells Year: 1978 Medium: Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 100 Size: 39 in. x 27 in. (99.06 cm x 68.58 cm)
Category

1970s Conceptual Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

Study for Uppercut, Lithography by Dennis Oppenheim
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Dennis Oppenheim, American (1938 - 2011) Title: Study for Uppercut Year: 1998 Medium: Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 89/150 Paper...
Category

1990s Conceptual Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

"Death Ramp", 1978, Lithograph by Dennis Oppenheim
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Dennis Oppenheim, American (1938 - 2011) Title: Death Ramp Year: 1978 Medium: Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 100 Size: 39 in. x 27 in. (99.06 cm x 68.58 cm)
Category

1970s Conceptual Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

"Tank Skid", 1978, Lithograph by Dennis Oppenheim
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Dennis Oppenheim, American (1938 - 2011) Title: Tank Skid Year: 1978 Medium: Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 100 Size: 39 in. x 27 in. (99.06 cm x 68.58 cm)
Category

1970s Conceptual Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

"Ghost Trip", 1978, Lithograph by Dennis Oppenheim
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Dennis Oppenheim, American (1938 - 2011) Title: Ghost Trip Year: 1978 Medium: Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 100 Size: 39 in. x 27 in. (99.06 cm x 68.58 cm)
Category

1970s Conceptual Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

"Cage Screen Test", 1978, Lithograph by Dennis Oppenheim
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Dennis Oppenheim, American (1938 - 2011) Title: Cage Screen Test Year: 1978 Medium: Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 100 Paper Si...
Category

1970s Conceptual Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

Cobalt Vectors, Abstract Lithograph by Dennis A. Oppenheim
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Dennis Oppenheim, American (1938 - 2011) Title: Cobalt Vectors Year: 1979 Medium: Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 150 Size: 41.25 in. x 29.75 in. (104.78 c...
Category

1970s Conceptual Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

"No Room for Horses", 1978, Lithograph by Dennis Oppenheim
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Dennis Oppenheim, American (1938 - 2011) Title: No Room for Horses Year: 1978 Medium: Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 100 Size: 39...
Category

1970s Land Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

"Star Field - Western United States", 1979, Lithograph by Dennis Oppenheim
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Dennis Oppenheim, American (1938 - 2011) Title: Star Field - Western United States Year: 1978 Medium: Lithograph, signed and numbered in ...
Category

1970s Conceptual Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

Construction Drawing
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Kansas City, MO
“Construction Drawing II”, 1973 Dimensions : 18.75″ x 23.5″ Signed by the artist, Edition 16/75 Dennis Oppenheim (September 6, 1938 – January 21, 2011) was an American conceptual ar...
Category

1960s Conceptual Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

Construction Drawing
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Kansas City, MO
“Construction Drawing I”, 1973 Dimensions : 19″ x 23.5″ Signed by the artist, Edition 16/75 Dennis Oppenheim (September 6, 1938 – January 21, 2011) was an American conceptual artist...
Category

1960s Conceptual Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

Launching Station #1
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Palm Desert, CA
A color pencil and pigment work on paper by Post War artist Dennis Oppenheim. Signed lower right, "Dennis Oppenheim 1981". Provenance: General Electric Corporate Collection; Hea...
Category

1980s Post-War Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Color Pencil, Paper, Pigment

Target
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Long Island City, NY
Artist: Dennis Oppenheim, American (1938 - 2011) Title: Target Year: 1981 Medium: Lithograph, signed and numbered in pencil Edition: 150 Size: 41.25 in. x 29.75 in. (104.78 cm x 75.5...
Category

1980s Conceptual Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

Construction Drawing III
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Kansas City, MO
Signed by the artist, Edition 16/75 Dennis Oppenheim (September 6, 1938 – January 21, 2011) was an American conceptual artist, performance artist, earth artist, sculptor and photogr...
Category

1960s Conceptual Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Construction Drawing V
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Kansas City, MO
Signed by the artist, Edition 16/75 Dennis Oppenheim (September 6, 1938 – January 21, 2011) was an American conceptual artist, performance artist, earth artist, sculptor and photogr...
Category

1960s Conceptual Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

Construction Drawing IV
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Kansas City, MO
Signed by the artist, Edition 16/75 Dennis Oppenheim (September 6, 1938 – January 21, 2011) was an American conceptual artist, performance artist, earth artist, sculptor and photogr...
Category

1970s Conceptual Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

Construction Drawing
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Kansas City, MO
“Construction Drawing II”, 1973 Dimensions : 18.75″ x 23.5″ Signed by the artist, Edition 16/75 Dennis Oppenheim (September 6, 1938 – January 21, 2011) was an American conceptual ar...
Category

1960s Conceptual Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

Construction Drawing
By Dennis A. Oppenheim
Located in Kansas City, MO
“Construction Drawing I”, 1973 Dimensions : 19″ x 23.5″ Signed by the artist, Edition 16/75 Dennis Oppenheim (September 6, 1938 – January 21, 2011) was an American conceptual artist...
Category

1960s Conceptual Dennis A. Oppenheim Art

Materials

Lithograph

Dennis A. Oppenheim art for sale on 1stDibs.

Find a wide variety of authentic Dennis A. Oppenheim art available for sale on 1stDibs. If you’re browsing the collection of art to introduce a pop of color in a neutral corner of your living room or bedroom, you can find work that includes elements of blue and other colors. You can also browse by medium to find art by Dennis A. Oppenheim in lithograph, color pencil, offset print and more. Much of the original work by this artist or collective was created during the 20th century and is mostly associated with the modern style. Not every interior allows for large Dennis A. Oppenheim art, so small editions measuring 16 inches across are available. Customers who are interested in this artist might also find the work of George Deem, Charles Ross, and Pol Bury. Dennis A. Oppenheim art prices can differ depending upon medium, time period and other attributes. On 1stDibs, the price for these items starts at $400 and tops out at $30,000, while the average work can sell for $880.

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