Tom Friedman - Contemporary Art Part I New York Thursday, May 17, 2007 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Feature Inc., New York; Kevin Bruk Gallery, Miami

  • Exhibited

    South London Gallery, Tom Friedman Solo Exhibition, June 15 - August 1, 2004

  • Catalogue Essay

    In the present lot, Untitled 2004 Tom Friedman creates an installation comprised of amongst other things, images sourced from biology books, horror magazines, diagrams and comic books, ultimately rendering his subject as a splattered form. The only human remnant left to provide proof that a body once existed is a paper femur bone resting on the paper rendering of a plinth. The installation immediately conjures images and narratives in viewer’s minds of a subject having been put to death, perhaps quite violently, as he was once standing or posing on a precipice. The use of the plinth in this installation, an object typically used to showcase sculptures is amusing as Friedman's sculpture has been deconstructed to its very core elements.

    It is the inherent violence associated with the act of blowing up a human body, albeit a constructed paper body, that captures our immediate attention. Yet because of the materials used and our placement of it within Friedman’s previous works, any feeling of horror is subverted into that of humor and playfulness. Friedman pushes the viewer to their limits of expectation all the while conscious of his visual and emotional impact on them.
    This emotional push and pull is something familiar with Friedman’s body of work in which he has, over the course of his career, created objects out of household materials like toilet paper, aspirin, chewing gum, pencils and toothpicks creating a visual language all his own that often delivers a rewarding punch-line to onlookers.

  • Artist Biography

    Tom Friedman

    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.

    View More Works

19

Untitled

2004
Paper collage.
2 x 62 1/2 x 93 in. (5.1 x 157.5 x 236.2 cm).

Estimate
$250,000 - 350,000 

Contemporary Art Part I

17 May 2007
7pm New York