l: ‘there’, 200,1 paper cube splat, courtesy the artistr: ‘untitled’, 2001, paper figure lying down, courtesy the artist

 

the largest and most complete retrospective of the artist’s work

 

prada foundation, milan 24 october – december 2002

http://www.fondazioneprada.org

 

the exhibition project, conceived by friedman for the space at the fondazione prada in milan, consists of a show that includes thirtyeight works created over the period 1989-2002. a dozen new ones and the other borrowed from museums and collectors. ‘I make work for specific exhibitions. I move from piece to piece, working on each a little time, my ideas develop through this process. I know I am finished when each piece achieves a sense of conceptual clarity and when the relationships between the works keep building upon each other.’ friedman says.

 

tom friedman’s funny and clever sculptures are passive-aggressive, we see them through the eyes of the outsider, the alien, the artist. looking at these sculptures is sort of like looking too closely in the mirror and seeing fields of blackheads on your otherwise lovely and photogenic nose. but at the same time things are simpler here on friedman’s side. there is humor in his work, but it is very modest and lightly dispensed. the exquisite fragility is very relaxing. simple and sometimes trivial ideas are taken to the extreme of credibility. his pieces are descriptive but devoid of content, and others spatially empty while inhabited by history.