Tom Friedman
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for Tom Friedman
Tom Friedman
born 1965
American sculptor. At the heart of Friedman’s idiosyncratic work is a denial that art must be grand in scale in order to be large in meaning. Profoundly antiheroic, formally diminutive and whimsical in choice of materials, his delicate small scale works are an assertion that focus and concentration, rather than size and ambition, can determine the scope of an artwork. He started exhibiting soon after completing an MFA in Sculpture at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1990. His work was positively received as a refreshing alternative to what could be seen as the slick production values of American art during the 1980s. Reminiscent of the process-oriented Minimalism of the 1970s, Friedman’s work was infused with a content that could be as humorous as it was serious. Untitled (1990), an early work in the form of a perfectly smooth 5-inch diameter ball of chewed gum, hinted at an earnestness in Minimal art by using the more derogatory cultural reference of the gum-chewing kid. Friedman always used prosaic objects, such as rubber bands, soap and drinking straws, as his sculptural materials. Through such neglected and commonplace things he explored themes of much greater import, turning the accumulation of almost imperceptible gestures into something surprisingly grandiose. These include Untitled (1995; see 1997 exh. cat.), a starburst made from approximately 30,000 toothpicks. While this and other works refer simultaneously to the galactic or molecular, to the infinitely large and the infinitesimally small, he also made obsessive and intimate works concerning the self, including Untitled (1993–4)a self-portrait carved into a tablet of aspirin. In 1993 he left Chicago to undertake a residency at Wesleyan University in Middletown, CT; he subsequently remained on the East Coast, settling in Massachusetts. [Andrew Cross. "Friedman, Tom." Grove Art Online. Oxford Art Online. Oxford University Press, accessed September 8, 2014, http://www.oxfordartonline.com/subscriber/article/grove/art/T097123.]
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