Dennis Oppenheim
Extended Armor

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Artist Dennis Oppenheim (American, 1938–2011)American, 1938–2011

CultureAmerican

Titles

Extended Armor

Date1970, printed 1989

PlaceNew York, New York, United States

MediumGelatin silver prints

DimensionsFrame (outer) (.A frame
): 40 3/4 × 60 3/4 × 1 7/16 in. (103.5 × 154.3 × 3.7 cm)
Frame (outer) (.B frame
): 40 7/8 × 60 3/4 × 1 7/16 in. (103.8 × 154.3 × 3.7 cm)

Credit LineGift of Dennis Oppenheim

Object number92.231.A,.B

Not on view

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Department

Photography

Object Type

PHOTOGRAPHS

DescriptionThis photographic
diptych documents part of Dennis Oppenheim’s 55 minute-long performance that
took place at Reese Palley Gallery in New York City in 1970. In this
performance, Oppenheim laid belly-down on the floor with his face wedged into
one end of a structure of three boards with a channel in the middle. From the
other end of the channel a video camera recorded his face in close-up.
Meanwhile, a tarantula was released in the other end of the wooden channel and
moved toward him. He fended off the spider’s threat by pulling out strands of
his own hair, spinning them into balls, and blowing them down the channel with
his breath to interrupt the spider’s advance. Like the spider spinning a web,
he used his own bodily threads to survive.

Oppenheim has received international attention
for a body of conceptual artwork that includes performance, sculpture, and photographs.
In the early 1970s, Oppenheim was in the group of artists using film and video
as a means to investigate themes relating to art using their own bodies, often
called Body art.
ProvenanceThe artist, New York; given to MFAH, 1992.
Exhibition History"Ruptures and Continuities: Photography Made after 1960 from the MFAH Collection," Museum of Fine Arts, Houston, Brown Foundation Galleries, February 21 - May 9, 2010.
Inscriptions, Signatures and Marks

Inscribed in pencil on mount .b recto: 1970 - 1989

Signed in pencil on mount recto: Dennis Oppenheim

Cataloguing data may change with further research.

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