The Glenbow Museum > Exhibitions > Current Exhibitions

Dennis Oppenheim, Device to Root Out Evil, 1997, Photo: Edward Smith

The BIG Reveal: September 5, 2008

Glenbow Museum and TORODE Install Upside Down Church in Calgary

Glenbow Museum is thrilled to announce Dennis Oppenheim's sculpture, Device to Root out Evil has a new home in Calgary! With help from major art sponsors, the TORODE Group of Companies, the sculpture is being resurrected in Ramsay - Calgary’s most creative neighbourhood.

As arts champions, Glenbow and TORODE are thrilled to partner to offer all Calgarians an opportunity to be inspired, challenged, excited and engaged in this provocative artwork. Originally celebrated and displayed in Vancouver, Oppenheim's compelling 6 metre tall glass, steel and aluminum structure has come to Glenbow on long-term loan from Vancouver's Benefic Foundation.

“Glenbow Museum is delighted to welcome the work of world renowned artist Dennis Oppenheim to Calgary,” said Jeff Spalding, Glenbow Museum’s President and CEO. “Oppenheim’s artwork is in some of the world's most prestigious collections including London, England’s Tate Gallery and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York City. It’s now time for Calgarians to be inspired and challenged by his sculpture.”

About the Artist

Dennis Oppenheim
Photo: Ali Kepenek, 2008

Dennis Oppenheim was born in 1938 in Electric City, Washington. He received his B.F.A. from the School of Arts and Crafts, and an M.F.A. from Stanford University.

He has received fellowships from the Guggenheim Foundation and the National Endowment for the Arts. Dennis Oppenheim has exhibited his works internationally in galleries and museums including the Tate Gallery, London; Stedelijk Museum, Amsterdam; Whitney Museum of American Art and The Museum of Modern Art, New York; Musee d'Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris; Galerie Pro Arte, Germany; and the Joseph Helman Gallery, New York.

He has been commissioned by many venues including Ballerup Kommune, Copenhagen; Neue Nationalgalerie, Berlin; The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, and Olympic Park, South Korea.

Dennis Oppenheim lives and works in New York.

Artist Statement

In sculpture, economy of gesture is often the mark of a successful work. In Device to Root out Evil, the simple inversion of a building (a church) is enough to radically alter the content of this object, and propel it into the pantheon reserved for high art. The steeple, usually piercing the sky in its lunge toward heaven, is now at ground level, pursuing with vigor, the demons of the deep.

The church becomes dynamic by cantilevering this meeting place into mid air, thus projecting all occupants into a spacial no mans land where equilibrium is exchanged for the dynamics of pursuit.