Dennis Oppenheim continues his subjective investigations into the body, experimenting with accidents, disappearance and danger. The artist's body is always shown in fragments in static shots, covered over and eclipsed by the use of various objects or materials. With this layering, a fascination with death and violence is affirmed in a muted and ambivalent manner. In a single image, a change occurs: a transformation marked by two recurrent actions of penetration and disappearance. The body is taken into tombs, gulfs and sites of hypothetical loss – fluid, unstable sites that are impossible to capture or name. It is in this flaw that the gesture of speech opens onto an indeterminate elsewhere, a world characterised by interferences, sensations and energies.

Stéphanie Moisdon
Translated by Anna Knight