David Opdyke (born 1969) is an American visual artist who works in sculpture and installation. He was born in

Schenectady Schenectady ( ) is a City (New York), city in Schenectady County, New York, United States, of which it is the county seat. As of the United States Census 2020, 2020 census, the city's population of 67,047 made it the state's ninth-most populo ...

, New York, and lives in

Queens Queens is the largest by area of the Boroughs of New York City, five boroughs of New York City, coextensive with Queens County, in the U.S. state of New York (state), New York. Located near the western end of Long Island, it is bordered by the ...

Work

Opdyke's work explores issues surrounding consumerism, globalization and

environmental degradation Environment most often refers to: __NOTOC__ * Natural environment, referring respectively to all living and non-living things occurring naturally and the physical and biological factors along with their chemical interactions that affect an organism ...

. His found-postcard installation, ''This Land'', portrays an idealized version of Americana upon first viewing. Upon closer scrutiny, viewers realize that each postcard includes painted interventions such as wildfires, locust swarms, tornadoes and similar "natural disasters" depicting the effects of climate change. Other painted additions include human responses or cultural interventions that feebly attempt to mitigate environmental disasters. In 2022, ''This Land'' was included in the exhibition, ''Someday, all this'', at the Climate Museum's pop-up space in

Soho SoHo, short for "South of Houston Street, Houston Street", is a neighborhood in Lower Manhattan, New York City. Since the 1970s, the neighborhood has been the location of many artists' lofts and art galleries, art installations such as The Wall ...

, New York. Opdyke's work has received critical attention in

The Paris Review ''The Paris Review'' is a quarterly English-language literary magazine established in Paris in 1953 by Harold L. Humes, Peter Matthiessen, and George Plimpton. In its first five years, ''The Paris Review'' published new works by Jack Kerouac, ...

, the Detroit Art Review,

Hyperallergic ''Hyperallergic'' is an online arts magazine, based in Brooklyn, New York. Founded by the art critic Hrag Vartanian and his husband Veken Gueyikian in October 2009, the site describes itself as a "forum for serious, playful, and radical thinki ...

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

, among other publications. He graduated from the

University of Cincinnati College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning The University of Cincinnati College of Design, Architecture, Art, and Planning (DAAP) is an arts and architecture college of the University of Cincinnati in Cincinnati, Ohio. It was initially established as the School of Applied Art in 1926. Hi ...

in 1962.

Awards and honors

*2004 -

Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum The Aldrich Contemporary Art Museum is located in Ridgefield, Connecticut. The Aldrich has no permanent collection and is the only museum in Connecticut that is dedicated solely to the exhibition of contemporary art. The museum presents the first ...

Emerging Artist Award *2018 - New York Foundation for the Arts fellowship (in painting)

Collections

Opdyke's works are held in the permanent collections of the

Museum of Modern Art The Museum of Modern Art (MoMA) is an art museum located in Midtown Manhattan, New York City, on 53rd Street (Manhattan), 53rd Street between Fifth Avenue, Fifth and Sixth Avenues. MoMA's collection spans the late 19th century to the present, a ...

, New York; the

Brooklyn Museum The Brooklyn Museum is an art museum in the New York City borough (New York City), borough of Brooklyn. At , the museum is New York City's second largest and contains an art collection with around 500,000 objects. Located near the Prospect Heig ...

, and other venues.

Publications

Monacelli Press/Phaidon published a monograph on his work, with essays by Maya Wiley and

Lawrence Weschler Lawrence Weschler (born 1952 in Van Nuys, California) is an American author of works of creative nonfiction. A graduate of Cowell College of the University of California, Santa Cruz (1974), Weschler was for over twenty years (1981–2002) a staff ...

References

External links

Official website

This Land: A Conversation with David Opdyke, Lawrence Weschler, and Maya Wiley (video interview)
Sculptors from New York (state) American male sculptors 1969 births Living people {{US-sculptor-stub