A conceptual artist who worked in sculptural installation, performance, photography, and film, Dennis Oppenheim became best known for his outdoor sculptures, known as “land art” or “earthworks,” created through interventions into urban and natural environments.

Oppenheim first executed Wishing the mountains madness in 1977 as part of a visiting artist workshop at the University of Montana. The original work consisted of a random distribution of fifty four-foot-wide plywood stars—some painted white, others pale shades of red or blue—on a grassy, two-acre hillside. While nodding to the nation’s bicentennial of the previous year, the work suggests a cosmic upheaval, bringing stars down to the earth. The title refers to what the artist felt was a jarring difference between the “very beautiful and serene” natural landscape of Montana and the diversity and energy of New York City in the late 1970s—a kind of creative “madness” he felt was missing from the bucolic lifestyle of the region.

Because of the temporary nature and remote location of Wishing the mountains madness, Oppenheim documented it by combining aerial photography with maps of the area. Installed in the Lobby, the documentation accompanies the restaging of Oppenheim’s original project in the Parrish’s Meadow.