Annual Rings

1968

Not on view

During the 1960s, a number of artists-including Oppenheim, Robert Smithson, and Walter De Maria-sought to liberate sculpture from the pedestals of the museum and made work that was inextricably bound to its site. In this piece, Oppenheim enlarged the patterns of the tree's growth and, by shoveling pathways in the snow, transposed the annual rings to the frozen waterway that divides the United States and Canada and also divides their time zones. By juxtaposing man-made national and temporal boundaries, Oppenheim opened to question the relative values of the ordering systems by which we live.

Artwork Details

Title: Annual Rings
Artist: Dennis Oppenheim (American, Electric City, Washington 1938–2011 New York)
Date: 1968
Medium: Gelatin silver print(s), ink on paper, photomechanical prints, wax crayon
Dimensions: 101.6 x 76.2cm (40 x 30 in.)
Frame: 106.7 × 81.3 cm (42 × 32 in.)
Classifications: Collages, Photographs, Prints
Credit Line: Purchase, The Horace W. Goldsmith Foundation Gift, through Joyce and Robert Menschel, 1999
Object Number: 1999.212
Rights and Reproduction: © Dennis Oppenheim Estate
Curatorial Department: Photographs

More Artwork

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[Dennis Oppenheim's Annual Rings], Unknown, Gelatin silver print — [Dennis Oppenheim's Annual Rings]
Unknown
Dennis Oppenheim
1968

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Multiples, Inc.

1970

Ground Cover, Dennis Oppenheim American, Sepia line print — Ground Cover
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Variations on Gallery Structures, Dennis Oppenheim American, Blue line print — Variations on Gallery Structures
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