BOOK:Dennis Oppenheim-Body to Performance 1969-73, Skira Publications

Dennis Oppenheim has been a pioneering artist in Conceptual Art, Land Art, Body Art, Video, and Sculpture since the late ‘60s. The monograph “Dennis Oppenheim Body to Performance 1969-73” by Skira Publications follows the conceptual actions of Dennis Oppenheim from 1969 to 1973, through slides, films, videos, installations and photographs including essays, unpublished interview with Willoughby Sharp, and numerous extracts from the notes and statements by the artist.A special emphasis is given how works such as “Arm and Wire” (1969), “Reading Position for Second Degree Burn” (1970), and  “Wishing Well” (1973), are realized through diverse mediums and modes of work in which the idea and act of time-based performance is central. Bringing Conceptual Art beyond the object and the gallery space, to investigate the “real world” and the “real-time” embedded in processes and places, performing experiments Oppenheim identify the artist’s body as an agent , material, and place of art, reaching out to multiple spaces and times. In directing the viewer towards the body as the source and the subject of his works, the artist stands in a critical manner to conventional materials and the conceptual limits of performance and sculpture. For example in his “Reading Position for Second Degree Burn” (1970), Oppenheim went to a Long Island beach and exposed his body to the sun. He placed a large book entitled “Tactics” over his chest. In this work represented by two photos, one shot shows the artist lying on the beach before the sunburn and the other after without the book. An unburned rectangle occupies the place where the book was.-Dimitris Lempesis