Arriving Home by Dennis Oppenheim

2007, steel, Lexan, perforated metal, rainbow acrylic, 12 feet high x 12 feet wide x 5 feet deep

The artist: Dennis Oppenheim (b. 1938 Electric City, Wash.) has delved into many artistic movements over his fifty-year career, including conceptual art, earth art and performance art. These varied interests have seeped into the large-scale sculptures the artist has been constructing since the 1990s. His public sculptures often incorporate architectural structures and reference one’s tether to home and family, as seen in such works as Engagement, a giant solitaire ring topped with a dwelling instead of a diamond. Rising and Setting Neighborhood references the daily commute of most Americans by depicting the light and shadow cast across a row of houses between sunrise and sunset. Coated in primary colors and frequently infused with electric lights, Oppenheim’s sculptures are part fun house, part subversive allusion to human relationships and societal constructs.

Artwork for Miller Plaza: The Hunter proposed one of Oppenheim’s lively sculptures for the Miller Plaza site. The work, Arriving Home, encapsulates the circular rhythms of traveling. Both departure and arrival are crystallized in this metallic spiral made of steel and acrylic. The curators thought this sculpture representing travel would fittingly reference its location. Miller Plaza serves as a popular intermediary between home and work for many Chattanoogans—be it during a lunch hour or summer’s Nightfall Concert series—and is located on the corner along the city’s busiest thoroughfares, Market Street and Martin Luther King Boulevard.

More information: Oppenheim’s work resides in numerous national and international collections, including the Tate Gallery, London; the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, Los Angeles; and The Museum of Modern Art, New York. The artist is represented by Rogallery and lives and works in New York City. See more of the artist’s work, or read a review of the artist’s work.