Oppenheimer creates installations that reconfigure the built environment. In Horizontal Roll, she uses architecture to generate a filmic experience. Shaped holes puncture walls, framing vistas into adjacent spaces that feature works of art in the Museum's contemporary collection. Each hole operates as a collection of frames, animated by the motion of the viewer. The form of each hole is based on the structure of the camera lens and, in concert with the viewer's motion, comprises a cinematic "shot." The precise combination of shots is determined by the viewer's motion. Unlike a traditional film, Horizontal Roll is an active cinema, one that incorporates the viewer's movement. The gallery visitor will determine the film's narrative through his or her visual procession through the exhibition.
Sarah Oppenheimer (American, born 1972) holds a BA in Semiotics from Brown University and an MFA from Yale University. Her work has been exhibited at such venues as The Drawing Center, the Mattress Factory, Sculpture Center, the Queens Museum of Art and Skulpturens Hus, Stockholm. She was the recipient of the 2007 Guggenheim Foundation Fellowship, the 2007 American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Art, a 2006 NYFA fellowship (in the category of Architecture/Environmental Structures) and a 2003 Rema Hort Mann Foundation Fellowship.
The Museum's Currents series features the work of contemporary artists. Currents 102: Sarah Oppenheimer is supported by the Henry L. and Natalie E. Freund Endowment Fund, which supports the exhibition and acquisition of contemporary art at the Museum and the teaching principles of contemporary art at the Sam Fox School of Design and Visual Arts at Washington University in St. Louis.
Curated by Robin Clark, curator at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego and former associate curator of contemporary art at the Saint Louis Art Museum, Currents 102: Sarah Oppenheimer will be on view in Gallery 337 through July 6, 2008. -- www.stlouis.art.museum
