Dennis A. Oppenheim

Whirlpool - Eye of the Storm, Lithograph by Dennis Oppenheim

1978

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.