sarah oppenheimer
rice gallery, houston, texas
september 16th to december 5th, 2010

sarah oppenheimer, P41, 2008
DUVE berlin
© sarah oppenheimer


throughout her work, american artist sarah oppenheimer rethinks and reinvents the most
taken-for-granted elements of architectural space: plans and holes. within existing spaces,
she creates new walls, passages and shaped holes, investigating how different kinds and
configurations of perforated planes affect our perceptual experience of the built space.
to define each of her installations, she has developed a system called a 'typology of holes'.
this typology consists of three basic categories: a wormhole, a cinema hole and a horizon hole,
each category designating not only the shape of the opening in the structure, but also the
organization of space surrounding the opening that is the hole.



sarah oppenheimer, 610-3356, 2008
view from the fourth floor
mattress factory, pittsburgh, pennsylvania
© sarah oppenheimer


for her upcoming show at the rice gallery, oppenheimer will present a new installation
in which she will create a hollow, needle-like form that will span nearly 60 feet,
dramatically bisecting the space of the rice gallery - as it rises from the floor and pierces
the building's exterior. here, she will explore a new kind of 'hole', focusing on the way light
enters the space through the building's façade of exterior windows, an entry foyer area
and the gallery's front glass wall. by controlling the light that passes through these spaces,
her installation will create surprising views for gallery visitors that will derive from glass'
natural ability to be a window or a highly reflective surface depending on the lighting conditions.



sarah oppenheimer, MF-142, 2009
annely juda fine art, london
photo: steven white
© sarah oppenheimer

'I have not yet generated a directed opening [a hole] that is at once mirror and window
by using an existing curtain wall [the front glass wall]. this is what I plan to do at rice.'
- sarah oppenheimer

sarah oppenheimer, horizontal roll, 2008
saint louis art museum, saint louis, missouri
© sarah oppenheimer