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CHRISSIE ILES: Dennis, I wondered
if we could talk about
your four-screen film installation "Echo"
from 1973.
The act of the hand slapping the wall
is very much... it's very architectural.
You know, you're engaging
with the architecture of the white cube
of the gallery, and it's almost as though
you were wanting to break apart
the white cube of the gallery
and break out.
OPPENHEIM: It was meant to be
what it is: a slap, a hit.
It's aggressive, and it had no allusions
about where this was going
to take place: on walls
where art is exhibited.
It was so simple.
And, uh...
it was the gallery walls,
the walls of the place
that art needs to show itself.
It was pretty aggressive.
I mean, it was done rhythmically.
You weren't thinking of music,
but you were thinking
of change to the tempo.
ILES: It's very interesting that the hand
appears so often in work of that period,
including "Echo."
OPPENHEIM: Because the hand...
the hand is what used to hold the tool,
of the brush, or the pencils.
So it had a direct correlation
to how art was made.
But to remove the tool, the appendage,
and to turn that body part
into the subject/object
I think is a byproduct of body art
and the thinking that went into it.
Body art had to go in various directions.
It was the nature of the discovery,
you know, the nature of discovering
that sculpture could pass
into performance and be legitimately
understood and accepted.
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