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“Salutations to the Sky”
From December 15 to February 15, 2011. Exhibition Opening: December 15, from 6-8 pm The Gabarron Foundation – Carriage House Center for the Arts 149 East 38th Street, New York, NY 10016
New York. December, 2011. The Gabarron in New York is pleased to present “Salutations to the Sky,” an exhibition of selected public artworks by Dennis Oppenheim – presented as sculptural models, photographs, and drawings – presented in honor of the artist’s enduring creative contribution to contemporary visual art in the late-20th and early-21st centuries. This exhibition is presented in collaboration with the Dennis Oppenheim studio as a unique opportunity to re-examine the artist’s interpretation of our surrounding environment – the connection between earth and sky – most readily recognized through Land Art, installation, and public art. Among the speakers offering remarks on Dennis will be Suzaan Boettger, a scholar of environmental and environmentalist art who wrote about his work extensively in her book Earthworks: Art and the Landscape of the Sixties and interviewed him on behalf of the Archives of American Art, where the interview can be read. The opening reception will be held on Thursday December 15th, from 6 to 8 PM.
“Salutations to the Sky” is composed of different projects that focus on the intangible connection, earth to sky. The first project, “Salutations to the Sky,” is a series of fictive aerial photographs presented as proposals to redirect the flow of the Sacramento River, located in California. Establishing literal communication between earth and sky, the viewer can read words – such as Always, Adios, and Faithfully Yours – formed by the river as it bends and curves through colorful patches of earth. The second project series in the exhibition is “Radiant Fountains,” commissioned from the artist by The Houston Arts Alliance (2010). This public project – located at the George Bush Intercontinental Airport in Houston, Texas – portrays water splashing upward sixty feet in the air, an effect of giant invisible droplets sent crashing to the ground from the sky above, revelaing the cyclical interplay between sky and earth. “Radiant Fountains” is presented in this exhibition as a series composed of three elements – video, model and drawing – examining the project in various states of becoming. The third work in the exhibition is photodocumentation of a project created in 1982, “Formula Compound. A Combustion Chamber. An Exorcism,” from the “Fireworks” Series. This work was considered an act of exorcism by the artist, where the “art object” is stripped of its object-hood. The importance of this sculpture ceases to be the object itself, the machine; rather, the sculpture’s action becomes its focus. Amy Plumb Oppenheim writes that action, not the object, connects “earth and sky using lines of light. Through projection, the sculpture is drawing in air, it becomes a fireworks projection machine.”
Dennis Oppenheim (1938-2011) continues to be an influential figure in international contemporary art. He exhibited his work in museums and galleries worldwide since 1968. During four decades his practice employed all available methods: writing, action, performance, video, film, photography, and installation. He has used mechanical and industrial elements, fireworks, common objects and traditional materials, materials of the earth, sky, his own or another’s body. He has created works for interior, exterior and public spaces. During the past two decades he concentrated on public projects, completing five public works in 2010 (Amy Plumb Oppenheim). In 1997 the Dennis Oppenheim studio and The Gabarron Foundation initiated a close working relationship and friendship with “Stage Set for a Film,” commissioned from Dennis Oppenheim by the City of Valladolid (Spain), completed in 1998. Over the years, the Dennis Oppenheim studio and The Gabarron Foundation collaborated on multiple projects, many of which were realized in cities that have particular significance for The Gabarron and its founder, Cristobal Gabarron. In 2010, Dennis Oppenheim participated in the Armory Show with Cristobal Gabarron and Christo and Jeanne-Claude, exhibiting together in The Gabarron Foundation booth and taking part in associated events. “Salutations to the Sky” at the Carriage House Center for the Arts is the most recent collaboration between the Dennis Oppenheim studio and The Gabarron Foundation.
The Gabarron Foundation – Carriage House Center for the Arts is a non-profit organization and an exclusive international center specializing in art exhibitions and other cultural activities. Its main objective is the promotion of Culture, making this multicultural space a reference in the City of New York. Since 2002 the Carriage House has aspired to be an excellent platform for the propagation of Hispanic culture in the United States. This organization promotes exchange and understanding between Spanish and American cultures, providing a space for interaction and enhanced appreciation of emerging and established cultural figures from both countries.