Dennis Oppenheim

Reconstructed Dwelling is a recently completed commission for Tyvola Station on the new 9.6 mile Charlotte Area Transit System LYNX Blue Line.

In this work, generic architectural elements from a typical residence are scrambled, repositioned and reassembled on top of a large pyramid representing an inverted roof.

Windows, doors, walls and floors are assembled on the tilted horizontal plane of the pyramid with it's extended patio which overhangs a floor plan of the original home. Upside-down stairs lead to a cantilevered corridor chamber containing a row of smoke gray windows.

The layout of the rooms, including the outside "footprint" of the dwelling is painted in blue on the station's concrete. It's is as if the elements could fall together into conventional placement.

The entire 30 x 60 x 60 foot assemblage is positioned nearby stairs which lead to the train platform. As part of their commute from their own homes, passengers can walk by and through the Reconstructed Dwelling, and are given the opportunity to reflect on a possible rearrangement of the conventional.

January 2007.

Dennis Oppenheim has been awarded the commission for Mill Square at the heart of the Distillery District, in connection with a future mixed use development near the art site. Toronto's landmark District, which houses wonderful Victorian industrial architecture, is being revived as a vibrant place to live, work and create and as an artistic community. The DHD Public Art Program's jury was impressed with the "celebratory" nature of Oppenheim's proposal, Dancing Still.

The projects consist of a chimney-like structure, converted into an aerial membrane which the audience can gather under to view projections of colliding shapes. The images are kaleidoscopic patterns to be reflected in multiple mirrors. Viewing takes place in a chamber formed by giant half circular arcs which also elevate the chimney above the street. Coming from the forty foot chimney at a radical angle is a massive spiral configuration made of perforated metal, which cascades downward to enclose the pulsating, eighteen foot diameter frozen tear drop shape which represents the liquid formation from a distillery. In this case it is ignited by hundreds of LED light operating in multiple directions on the surface of it's skeletal structure.

According to the artist... Dancing Still is a combination of sculpture, architecture and theater. By combining these art forms into one work, which derives content from an association with early distillery images and their alchemical apparatus, one encompasses a work, which incorporates the extraordinary transformative drama inherent in the distillery process."

Dancing Still will be constructed in aluminum, steel, and structural cast resins and will use state of the art theatrical projectors. Working with a team of architects, engineers and designers, the artist will direct the fabrication and install on the site this year.

As one of the leading artists in the field of sculpture with a career spanning over 40 years, Oppenheim has worked in public art since the 1980s. The Toronto commission is one of many projects for the year 2008, including a commission for the Beijing Summer Olympics, which will be situated in front of the Herzog and De Meuron stadium building.

Para/Site Art Space is proud to present Dennis Oppenhiem’s first exhibition in China, featuring the drawings and models of six public art projects. The exhibition is curated by Tobias Berger and Melissa Lam of Para/Site.

Oppenheim will have two sculptures constructed at the Beijing Olympics in Summer 2008; one in Beijing entitled “Raining Halos,” and the second in Hong Kong, entitled “Engagement”. Oppenheim recently completed “Crystal Mountain” in Spain and “Reconstructed Dwelling” in Charlotte, North Carolina, United States. Other commissions include “Wave Forms” in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, and “Multi Helix Lighthouse Tower” in San Pedro, Los Angles, California. For the Scope Miami Art Fair in December 2007, he exhibited “Safety Cones.”

American conceptual artist, Dennis Oppenheim is one of the foremost figures working in the field of public sculpture today. A defining principal of his work is to reconstruct an object by radically altering its size, typically enlarging everyday objects like wine glasses and cotton shirts, to huge dimensions. Oppenheim also looks to architecture, such as houses and churches and often subversively presents them as upside down or torn apart.


Para/Site Art Space is a non-profit arts organization in the center of Hong Kong. It produces, exhibits, and communicates local and international contemporary art. Main activities include presenting an ambitious year-round program comprising 10 exhibitions, publications of catalogues and PS magazine (Hong Kong's only bilingual visual arts publication). To complement the exhibitions program, seminars, talks, and workshops are regularly organized.


Founded in 1996, Para/Site Art Space was first temporarily located in Kennedy Town. In April 1997, Para/Site Art Space moved to the present location at Sheung Wan, close to the city center of Hong Kong, right on the Western end of Hollywood Road, Hong Kong's renowned antique street. Para/Site Art Space also works outside Hong Kong presenting works in exhibitions such as the Gwangju Biennale 2002 and the Venice Biennale 2003.

DENNIS OPPENHEIM DEBUTS LANDSCAPES OF THE FUTURE IN CITY PARKS
Parks & Recreation is pleased to present Alternative Landscape Components: A New Land Art Art, a new series by renowned earth artist Dennis Oppenheim. Two outdoor installations and an indoor exhibit introduce a radical new direction in Oppenheim’s work, an integration of sculpture and landscape architecture. The exhibition is on view September 14 – November 8, 2006 in several locations in New York City parks.

“Parks & Recreation’s temporary public art program has consistently fostered the creation and installation of temporary public art in parks throughout the five boroughs,” said Parks & Recreation Commissioner Adrian Benepe. “Since 1967, collaborations with arts organizations and artists have produced hundreds of public art projects in City parks. Dennis Oppenheim’s work is an exemplary illustration of incorporating nature into art and art into nature.”

Thomas Paine Park in downtown Manhattan is home to Garden for the Accused Accused, an extensive garden named for the adjacent courts and jails. The uptown installation, Landscape Installations for Central Park Park, places the artist’s trees and flowerbeds alongside their natural versions, creating a dialog between the organic and the synthetic. Both installations involve highly artificial, manmade landscapes of trees, rocks, hedges and flowers. Fluorescent trees with steel mesh branches support brightly colored acrylic shapes. The artist utilized steel, acrylic panels and household and landscaping objects such as trashcans, milk crates, fencing and plastic tubing to create elements that mimic nature. “

In a way, it’s like bringing a Las Vegas lobby to the backyard,” said artist Dennis Oppenheim. “The structures resemble interior furniture more than what one would order from a nursery.” The installations are part of a large, new body of work that has culminated from ideas that the artist has explored since his early rejection of the traditional gallery space for the outdoors during the Land Art Movement of the 1960s. The Arsenal Gallery exhibit will examine this new and still developing work by displaying working drawings for the current outdoor pieces, as well as yet unrealized landscape elements. Curated by Parks & Recreation’s Public Art Coordinator Clare Weiss, the exhibit features photo montages in locations ranging from suburban backyards to dramatic mountain and seaside landscapes. Oppenheim has shown extensively in major galleries and museums around the world.

Thomas Paine Park is located in Foley Square at Worth, Lafayette and Centre Streets in downtown Manhattan. The uptown installation and the Arsenal Gallery are located in Central Park on 5th Avenue at 64 th Street. Gallery hours are Monday-Friday, 9 a.m. – 5 p.m.; closed on October 9 and November 7, 2006. Admission is free.