On the occasion of the fourth edition of Milano Drawing Week, Vistamare is pleased to present A4, a solo exhibition by Tom Friedman.
Invited to select a work from the Ramo Collection – Drawing in Italian Art of the 20th and 21st Century, Friedman chose a drawing by Piero Manzoni, Untitled (Impronta), from 1960. For the occasion, the artist has created ten new works on paper that explore his unique approach from actual mark making and rendering methods to just using the folding, wrinkling, and tearing of the paper.
“Art, for me, is a context to slow the viewer’s experience from their everyday life in order to think about things they haven’t thought about. Or to think in a new way.” (Tom Friedman).
Inhabiting the boundary between reality and illusion, and hovering between the comic and conceptual, Friedman’s playful works challenge everyday processes of perception and notions of artistic value.
Tom Friedman (Saint Louis, Missouri, 1965) in his research starts with a unique approach and the use of everyday materials and objects, such as expanded polystyrene, pencils, paper, spaghetti, and plastic cups, exploring the relationship between the making of art and the psychology of our perception of art. Like a scientist studying empirical and non-empirical phenomena and an object’s infinite references, Friedman analyses its imperceptible transformations. His work has been exhibited all over the world: Quebec City Biennial (2022); Mead Art Museum (2016); Tel Aviv Museum of Art (2015), Museum of Modern Art Moma, New York (2010, 2009, 2007, 2003, 2001); Magasin 3 Stockholm Konsthall (2010); South London Gallery (2004); Fondazione Prada, Milan (2002); New Museum of Contemporary art, New York (2002); the Art Institute of Chicago (2000); and numerous other institutions. He lives and works in Leverett, Massachusetts.