Dennis Oppenheim

Dennis Oppenheim was born in 1938 in Electric City, Washington, USA. From 1958 to 1962 he lived in Honolulu, Hawaii, where he worked as an artist and held various second jobs. He studied at the California College of Arts and Crafts (CCAC) in Oakland and Stanford University, California, among other institutions, graduating with a Master of Fine Arts degree in 1965. In 1966, he moved to New York, where he taught fine arts in schools. In 1968, he received his first solo exhibition in New York at the John Gibson Gallery. He had numerous solo exhibitions and participated in major and group exhibitions, including the Kunsthalle Bern, Switzerland, in 1969; the Tate Gallery, London, United Kingdom, in 1972; and the Museum Boijmans Van Beuningen, Rotterdam, Netherlands, in 1976. He participated in documenta 5 in 1972 and documenta 6 in Kassel, Germany, in 1977. Other institutions included the Musee d'Art Contemporain, Montreal, Canada, 1978; Kunsthalle Basel, Switzerland, 1979; Württembergischer Kunstverein, Stuttgart, Germany; Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, 1983 and 2003; and P.S.1 Contemporary Art Center, Long Island City, USA, 1991; the Mannheimer Kunstverein, Mannheim, Germany, and Museu Serralves, Portugal, 1996; Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, Ireland, and Ludwig Forum für Internationale Kunst, Aachen, Germany, 2001; and Kunsthalle Düsseldorf, Düsseldorf, Germany, 2003. Dennis Oppenheim lived and worked in New York until his death in 2011.