Device to Root Out Evil 1997

Dennis Oppenheim built this upside-down church, titled "Device to Root Out Evil," to, well, shake things up a bit. The whole structure is made of these pale, unfinished-looking timbers, set against the dark shingles of the roof - or, I guess, the foundation, given the way it's oriented. When I look at the details of the building's construction it reminds me that artmaking is not about answers but about the process. That pointed steeple is actually rooted into the ground. It’s a pretty strange way to go about rooting out evil, isn’t it? And that’s the point. Oppenheim wants us to question everything, to see the world from a totally different perspective. Maybe that's why it reminds me a bit of some of Bruce Nauman's architectural pranks. If we want to know about the human condition, we have to question what is good and what is bad. We need to see how these values are expressed by society and maybe shake them up a little bit.