Dennis Oppenheim, an icon of conceptual, performance, and earth art, is making his appearance in Potsdam's Schiffbauergasse!

His visit has been made possible by the Intergalerie e.V. and Trollwerk Art e.V.

In the fall of 2007, New York City's Central Park hosted Oppenheim's newest exhibition, “Landscapes of the Future,” a both anticipatory and reminiscent depiction of urban growth and supplanted nature. Making its first appearance in Europe, part of this work of art will now be on display in Potsdam.

Appearing on the Schiffbauergasse are an array of trees, hedges, rocks, bushes and flowers composed of elements from the urban everyday: steel, fluorescent acryl board, household items, garbage cans, milk crates, and plastic tubes and pipes. The attributes passed down from both provincial and metropolitan areas have been extracted and melded into a new anthroposphere.

A retrospective of Oppenheim’s work will be on display in Kunstraum Potsdam.

Embedded and supported within a comprehensive framework as well as the framework of the Brandenburg Cultural Theme of the Year 2008, namely “Provincial and Metropolitan—Metropolitan and Provincial”, the opportunity to experience Oppenheim’s “Landscapes” invites visitors to discover and contemplate its artistic origins.

This project is part of this year’s international display program in the Schiffbauergasse, together with a staging by Peter Brook in the “Arena” on July 19 and 20, 2008.

The exhibition will be curated by Erik Bruinenberg, a gallerist in the Schiffbauergasse’s Waschhaus from 1994-2002 and thereafter a successful free-lance curator.

THE DENNIS OPPENHEIM WEEKS
are kindly supported by:
Kulturland Brandenburg e.V.,
Ostdeutsche Sparkassenstiftung im Land Brandenburg,
Landeshauptstadt Potsdam,
Beauftragter für den Integrierten Kulturstandort Schiffbauergasse,
Fachbereich Kultur und Museum der Stadt Potsdam,
Ministerium für Wissenschaft, Forschung und Kultur
des Landes Brandenburg.
Cooperational partner:
Waschhaus e.V.

The Kunstraum Potsdam’s opening hours are:
Wednesday – Friday 2:00pm – 8:00 pm
Saturday and Sunday 12:00pm – 8:00pm

Dennis Oppenheim was born in 1938 in Electric City, Washington USA, and currently lives and works in New York City, New York USA. He has been awarded the research stipend from the Guggenheim Foundation, as well as a stipend from the National Endowment for the Arts, among other awards. He currently has exhibitions in the Tate Gallery, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Whitney Museum of American Art and The Museum of Modern Art, New York City; and the Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris.

Recently praised for his artistic life’s work at the Vancouver Sculpture Biennial 2007, Oppenheim has been the focus of international interest for years. He has had continual success in new discoveries and interpretations in diverse media, and he has both influenced and pioneered the art of his time

Oppenheim’s conceptual art – and especially his earth art works – are legendary, just as is his video and performance art of the late 1960s. These works still provide a dynamic impulse today, being an integral part of the historical artistic medium from which contemporary video art has developed.

Furthermore, with these works Oppenheim initiated an extremely personal exploration process of investigating the limits of personal risk, transformation, and communication—to become the overall binding elements in his diverse collection of works. Oppenheim’s “Complex Constructions” or “Sculptures”, appearing in the 1980s—1990s, succeeded in making the experience of art and artistic work possible on an intimate, subtle level going beyond simple observation of a piece.

Since the mid-1990s, Oppenheim has developed projects with architectural dimensions, focusing primarily on permanent exhibitions in which sculpture and architecture meet and meld.