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September 2009
Water jet-cut aluminum, galvanized steel, acrylic, composite aluminum, colored cast resin benches, hand-painted clay tiles, steel and aluminum headers, decomposed granite.
Dennis Oppenheim's Garden of Evidence is sculpture and landscape elements distributed throughout the entry plaza of the forensics lab and the police station. Six architectural scale prickly pear cactus forms are placed within shadow forms which play with the vertical shapes on the ground plane. Forms of evidence analyzed inside the forensic lab provide the imagery for other landscape elements. These tools of investigation combine with the interlocking cactus and bench forms to create pieces of thematic puzzle.
Selected to participate as an artist in the 2008 Olympics in Beijing, China, Dennis Oppenheim continued to be an influential figure in international contemporary art until his passing in January 2011. He first achieved recognition for conceptual work in the sixties, traversing through Earth and Body Art, video and performance. Using his body as a site to challenge the self, he also explored, through numerous gallery and museum installation, the boundaries of personal risk, transformation, and communication
In the eighties, he used complex constructions, machine-factory installations to create metaphors for the artistic process.  Transformation through mutation was the basis for sculpture through the nineties. Since then the artist has concentrated on permanent public sculpture. Through this work he fuses an interest in architecture with sculpture.
Dennis Oppenheim was born in 1938 in Electric City, Washington. He received his B.F.A. from the School of Arts and Crafts, and an M.F.A. from Standford University. After graduation, Dennis Oppenheim lived and worked in New York City.
Jana Weldon
janaw@sccarts.org
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