Dennis Oppenheim Quotes

#1. Make things that carry with them the residue of where they have been.

Dennis Oppenheim

#2. You can't understand how strange it was to be a sculptor who exhibited photographs. (On exhibitions of his earthworks and land art pieces.)

Dennis Oppenheim

#3. The photograph gives constant reference to the rectangle. This forces any idea into the confines of pictorial illusionism.

Dennis Oppenheim

#4. Most of my work comes from ideas. I can usually do only a few versions of each idea. Land Art and Body Art were particularly strong concepts which allowed for a lot of permutations. But nevertheless, I found myself wanting to move onward into something else.

Dennis Oppenheim

#5. Turning something upside-down elicits a reversal of content and pointing a steeple into the ground directs it to hell as opposed to heaven.

Dennis Oppenheim

#6. [The photographs] were there simply to indicate a radical art that had already vanished. The photograph was necessary only as a residue for communication.

Dennis Oppenheim