Dennis Oppenheim

Dennis Oppenheim is considered as a key figure in several art movements, including Land Art, Conceptual Art and Body Art, his works range from a self-inflicted sunburn to epic landscape-based interventions and, more recently, violent sculptural installations. Land or Earth Art, Body Art, and Performance created art practice that did not readily transfer into the market. These art manifestations were encapsulated into durable material form only by a secondary medium, that of photography. This publication through fifteen works created between 1968 and 1998 demonstrates how Oppenheim introduced new ways of defining and pursuing art. Never part of the main current of sequential movements, Oppenheim was a crucial player among those who built new paths parallel to the mainstream. These new approaches, fuelled by skepticism and a spirit of intellectual adventure, are grouped under the general term of Conceptualism, a term that embraces all idea-driven work.

Milan, April-May 2007