Sarah Oppenheimer will create a monumental permanent work for the University of Texas at Austin
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Installation view of Sarah Oppenheimer’s previous work S-399390 (2016) in Mudam Luxembourg
Serge Hasenböhle
The American sculptor Sarah Oppenheimer, known for her works that confuse the viewer Perceptions Between Architecture and Space, will unveil a $ 1.7 million commission later this year for the Landmarks public arts program at the University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin). The sprawling but little-known outdoor arts campus includes works by artists such as Mark di Suvero, Louise Bourgeois, and Sol LeWitt on a 433-acre campus.
The work, titled C-010106, will be installed on the pedestrian bridge between the Gary Thomas Energy Building and the Engineering Education and Research Center, two new buildings from the Cockrell School of Engineering designed by New York firm Ennead Architects with Jacobs. “Sarah’s work and the process she is going through to get her work done seemed to resonate so much with the space and complement the technical activities and processes so wonderfully,” says Andrée Bober, the founding director and curator of Landmarks.
Oppenheimer asked that renderings of the work be kept under lock and key, but according to Bober, we know the following: “The structure consists of two parallel glass levels visible from the pedestrian bridge and below. Within the two glass levels there are two reflective diagonal glass levels that face the sky and the ground. The four planes meet at the bridge and flow dramatically through it. “
“We always have a mental constellation of artists that we would like to work with, but each assignment is physically tied to a specific space, so many stars have to be coordinated for an artist to be suitable for a particular project,” she adds added. With Sarah it worked perfectly. ”
Born in Austin and living in New York, Oppenheimer has had major exhibitions at the Massachusetts Museum of Contemporary Art, the Pérez Art Museum Miami, the Kunstmuseum Thun, and others. She is known for work that causes striking changes in perception of the environment and challenges our visual understanding of the world. Her project for landmarks is being realized in part with a grant of US $ 20,000 from the National Endowment for the Arts and is due to be completed in September and presented in October.
Mark di Suvero, Clock Knot (2007) at the University of Texas at Austin
Photo: Ben Aqua. Courtesy of Landmarks, the University of Texas at Austin’s public arts program.
The nascent Landmarks program, funded by a percent-for-art allotment for construction projects on the UT Austin campus, was launched in 2008 as a collaboration between the university and the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York for a long time – On permanent loan of 28 important contemporary works in his collection.
The program has made 14 orders and 5 acquisitions to date. Last month it acquired Simone Leigh’s bronze sculpture Sentinel IV (2020) – a figurative work modeled on a ceremonial Zulu spoon – in a conscious effort to involve women and black artists more in the acquisition process, Bober said. The work cost $ 378,000 and will be unveiled on July 15.
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