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of art by this artist.
Tom Friedman Biography
Tom Friedman is a contemporary American conceptual artist whose work defies easy categorization, as it spans a wide array of media including sculpture, painting, drawing, video, and installation. Born in 1965 in St. Louis, Missouri, Friedman's early life and education played a significant role in shaping his artistic journey. He studied graphic illustration at Washington University in St. Louis, graduating in 1988, before completing an MFA in Sculpture at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1990. It was during his time in Chicago that Friedman began to make works involving intense labor, ritualistic meditation, and lowly materials, which would become hallmarks of his practice.
Friedman's art is celebrated for its playful and exacting approach, as he embraces everyday life by looking afresh at familiar objects and their assigned function. His meticulously rendered drawings and sculptures recreate random elements from his daily life and surroundings, often confounding expectations through startling trompe l'oeil effects. What might first appear to be a simple, stable structure is, on closer inspection, intricately constructed from unexpected materials such as Styrofoam, flock, wire, or even the artist’s own hair. His works inhabit the boundary between reality and illusion, challenging everyday processes of perception and notions of artistic value.
Friedman's art is deeply autobiographical, using painstaking, labor-intensive methods to recreate seemingly random elements from his life. He pays obsessive attention to detail, particularly in the replication of the objects that surround him. This attention to detail brings humor and childlike wonder, as well as grave philosophical issues to each work. With the art object as a departure point, he uses everyday, easily understood found materials, enticing viewers to investigate further. Although much of the published work on Friedman's art focuses on the materials, it is ultimately about the tension produced through the phenomenological experience of observer, artwork, and space in between.
Throughout his career, Friedman has expanded his practice to include sculpture for public spaces. His stainless-steel, figurative sculptures, such as "Looking Up" (2020), present whimsical moments for passers-by. He has also worked with digital projections and computer technology, employing light to subtly render animations of the immaterial, like patterns of light cast through a window. His series 'Ghosts and UFOs: Projections for Well-Lit Spaces' (2017) is an example of this innovative approach.
Friedman's solo exhibitions have been numerous and varied, showcasing the breadth of his artistic exploration. Notable exhibitions include "Tom Friedman: Eternal Return" at projects + gallery in St. Louis, Missouri (2019), "Up in the Air" at Magasin III Museum for Contemporary Art in Stockholm (2010), and "REAM" at the Saint Louis Art Museum (2009). His group exhibitions have also been extensive, including "Supernatural America: The Paranormal in American Art" across various locations (2021–2022) and "After Photoshop" at the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (2012).
Friedman's work has been internationally exhibited in galleries and museums, and his pieces are included in prestigious collections such as the Museum of Modern Art in New York, the Whitney Museum of American Art in New York, and the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art. Public commissioned artworks of Friedman’s are permanently installed in various locations, including Austin, TX; Saint Louis, MO; Frisco, TX; and Beverly Hills, CA.
In addition to his visual art, Friedman has been the subject of several books and has been featured extensively in magazines such as Artforum and Frieze. His artistry is defined by its dead-pan humor, quotidian references, and challenging of perception, as well as the use of unconventional and irreverent materials. His oeuvre spans the field of painting, drawing, sculpture, video, and installation, and is holistically defined by its eclectic directions and the artist's own admission: "I tend to do one thing and then look to the opposite."
Tom Friedman's art, purposely evasive of a traceable sense of continuity, invites viewers to slow their experience from everyday life to think about things they haven't thought about, or to think in a new way. His work is a testament to the transformative power of art to alter perceptions and engage viewers in a deeper understanding of the objects and experiences that make up our daily lives.
Tom Friedman Quotes and Sales
of Works
Ponti Art Gallery selects and deals with paintings by the
artist. Upon request, we provide free estimates and
evaluations, communicate prices, quotations, and current
market values.
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artist, contact us immediately.
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works:
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