For four decades Dennis Oppenheim artistic practice employed various methods, including writing, action, performance, video, film, photography, installation and the more traditional sculpture. He used mechanical and industrial elements, fireworks, found objects, materials of the earth and even his own body. Through it all, Oppenheim’s purpose remained the same: challenging the observations and perceptions of his audience.

In the present work, a pair of "Boat Irons" reminds one of both the form of both a boat and a clothes iron and perhaps the unintended consequence of “in irons,” which recalls when a sailboat stalls in the wind. Whatever the intended consequence, the translucent forms and mirrored surfaces playfully make light an important aspect of this work. As critic Roberta Smith rightfully stated, Oppenheim’s work “can be defined as s series of sidelong glances at the doings of artists Vito Acconci, Robert Smithson, Bruce Nauman, Alice Aycock (to whom he was married in the early 1980s) and Claes Oldenburg."