Ceramic Urinals Plumbing
Pencil, coloured pencils, oil wash, oil pastel and silkscreen on paper depicting urinals lined up on a swiftly outlined wall. The visible fixings on these urinals give the illusion of contemplating faces, sagely lined up, as the inscription suggests.
Signed and dated on the right: ‘Dennis Oppenheim 1990’
Inscribed at the bottom: STUDY FOR FUNCTIONING FACES – CERAMIC URINALS PLUMBING – ELECTRIC PUMP METAL SLUGS SET AT EYE LEVEL 20’ LONG
Dimensions :
Sight : Height: 41 ¼ in. Width: 53 ¼ in.
With frame: Height: 45 ¾ in. Width: 57 ¾ in.
Provenance :
Former private collection, Belgium
Certificate:
Work referenced in the Dennis Oppenheim Estate Archives under its complete title ‘Study for Functioning Faces’
Remarks:
Dennis Oppenheim took on the impersonal style of engineer’s plans for his drawings, matching his activities in conceptual art and land art. From 1979, he starts using colours and mixed techniques, which give a more and more pictorial aspect to his drawings, which keep getting larger. Rapidly, his compositions on paper become autonomous works, as it is the case here. One must emphasise the fact that Oppenheim’s drawings are not work notes or instruction manuals but offer to the viewer fully materialized pictures. His technical ease does not show the trial and error of doubt, but the artist’s self-confidence, whose creations are already entirely determined. This graphic piece destined for exhibition achieves a documentary purpose. It is a part of the project development. For Dennis Oppenheim, the creative process that leads to the installation is as important as the installation itself, his drawing thus becoming a work of art entirely, as it is also the case with Christo.
