One of the most prolific and pluralistic artists of the world, Dennis Oppenheim, through many and different techniques (land art, performance, video, installations, sculpture), was always trying to bring art and aesthetics to their limits. The drawing that is presented here entitled "A device to root out evil" is one of many preliminary sketches that he had done for the construction of a public art sculpture with monumental dimensions, with which he participated in the national USA pavilion in the 1997 Venice Biennial. In the last twenty years of his career, he was systematically involved in public art and architecture, despite the fact that many of his versions of this public work were rejected or even destroyed, since he was depicting a typical American church of New England upside down. He also was saying that "It's a very simple gesture that's made here, simply turning something upside-down. One is always looking for a basic gesture in sculpture, economy of gesture: it is the simplest, most direct means to a work. Turning something upside-down elicits a reversal of content and pointing a steeple into the ground directs it to hell as opposed to heaven". [Dennis Oppenheim, Study for device to root out evil, 1997, Pencil. colored pencils, aquarelle and pastel on paper, 195 x 127cm, MOMus - Museum of Contemporary Art-Macedonian Museum of Contemporary Art and State Museum of Contemporary Art Collections]