New York, Robert Miller Gallery, Vanitas Personae: An Exploration of the Self and Other Related Characters, March 4-April 1, 2000; Chicago, Museum of Contemporary Art, July 8-October 1, 2000; San Francisco, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, November 4, 2000-January 28, 2001; Aspen Art Museum, February 22-April 15, 2001; Winston-Salem, South Eastern Center for Contemporary Art, July 14-September 24, 2001; New York, The New Museum of Contemporary Art, October 12, 2001–February 3, 2002, Tom Friedman, (illustrated, p. 37); Milan, Fondazione Prada, Tom Friedman, October 25-December 15, 2002 (illustrated, p. 14)
B. Hainley, D. Cooper, and A. Searle, Tom Friedman, London, 2001, p. 48 (illustrated); G. Celant, ed., Tom Firedman, Fondazione Prada, Milan, 2002, p. 14 (illustrated)
American • 1965
Tom Friedman is a multimedia artist working mainly in sculpture and works-on-paper. Interested in looking at the thin line between fantasy and autobiography, Friedman often creates works that push viewers into a complicit state of witnessing. His sculptures are composed of a multitude of objects, and he assembles them in such a way as to transform the mundane into an intricate work of art. He combines materials such as Styrofoam, foil, paper, clay, wire, hair and fuzz through a labor-intensive practice that seeks to tell a story, whether about himself or the world at large.
Friedman's approach to autobiography is not memoiristic. Rather, he takes the smallest moments of his life, like a piece of paper found on the street, and blows it out of proportion.
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