American artist Dennis Oppenheim (1938-2011) died unexpectedly last January and left behind a diverse oeuvre found in museums, private collections and public spaces across the globe. His early work was associated with both performance/body art and early earthworks/land art movement. By the mid-1990s he was creating large-scale public art pieces around the world. One public art project was the psychedelic “BUS HOME” bus shelter produced for the city of Ventura, California in 2002. In a 2009 interview, Oppenheim confessed that he enjoyed bridging the world of artist studio and architecture — however the democratic public art process required a “very thick skin.” His friend and author Tobey Crockett commented that “Dennis was a true master” and “allow[ed] us to see life as never before.”
