Dennis Oppenheim

Dennis Oppenheim was an American conceptual artist known for his pioneering work in earthworks, body art, and installation art. His early works in the late 1960s and 1970s often involved large-scale interventions in the landscape, such as Annual Rings (1968), which used snow and ice to create temporary patterns. Transitioning to body art, Oppenheim explored the human body as a canvas and medium, exemplified by Reading Position for Second Degree Burn (1970), where he used his own skin to create a sunburned imprint of a book. In the 1980s and 1990s, he shifted towards more elaborate installations and public art projects, including Device to Root Out Evil (1997), a controversial sculpture of an inverted church. Throughout his career, Oppenheim's work was characterized by its experimental nature and its interrogation of the boundaries between art and the environment, the body, and societal structures.