A FEED-BACK SITUATION

In a series of works made between 1970 and 1974 with his son Erik and his daughter Chandra. Oppenheim makes a drawing on his children's backs, which they reproduce, through tactile sensation, on the wall or on each other’s back, switching roles when finished. ‘I am drawing through him,’ Oppenheim writes. By provoking a continuation of his actions and a feedback effect on himself, he creates an extension of his own movement through the sensory system of his son or daughter. ‘We realised that Body art was about “transfers” that did not materialise. Energy was for the Body art artist what marble had been for classical sculptors: the material par excellence.