TOM OTTERNESS: Drawings and Sculpture

Press Release

TOM OTTERNESS

BOMBEATER

Drawings and Sculpture

April 26th – June 7th, 2003

Press Release

Skoto Gallery is pleased to present an exhibition of drawings and sculpture by Tom Otterness. This will be his second exhibition at the gallery. A reception for the artist is scheduled for Saturday, April 26th, 4-8pm.

Tom Otterness is renowned for his bronze sculpture which animates public spaces with humorous characters that chronicle the absurd and parody man’s insecurities. His themes are both specific and general, and his ability to craft myths so strong as to turn current events and political reality into children’s fable and festive celebration. The playful and even comical quality of his sculptural narratives are infused with multi-layered allegorical commentaries on the fragile human condition that strategically merge private concerns with social agenda, a sensitivity to historicism with an acute political consciousness.

The show will include works in a variety of media – drawings, plaster and bronze sculpture, as well as Tom’s first animated short. There will also be a new unlimited plaster edition. There are strong surrealist sensibilities and a cinematic attitude that help reinforce the contrast between the perceptual and physical experience of space in his work. The enlargement of fragments of daily life and body parts into monuments of municipal authority create situations that are physically or intellectually disorienting, forcing viewers to confront their own experiential thresholds. His graceful drawings suggest multiple sources ranging from political cartoons of the French revolution, classical myth and the perilous times we live in today.

Tom Otterness, born in Wichita, Kansas was a member of Collaborative Projects Inc. (Colab) in New York and first came into prominence in the late 1970s with his schematic cast hydrocoal figures. His works are in the permanent collections of several museums such as The Brooklyn Museum, The Museum of Modern Art, New York, Dallas Museum, The Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, The Whitney Museum of American Art, New York and The Nassau County Museum of Art. Exhibitions includeÊthe Galerie Rudolph Zwirner, Cologne, Germany, John Berggruen Gallery, San Francisco and the Brooke Alexander Gallery, New York. Tom is currently represented by Marlborough Gallery, New York. Public commissions include Life Underground: NYC-MTA at 14th Street / 8th Avenue Subway on the A, C, E and L lines; The New World at Los Angeles Federal Court Plaza, State Library Installation, Munster, Germany and The Real World at Battery Park City in Manhattan. Presently, he is working on a large public commission for Museum Beelden aan Zee in The Netherlands which is scheduled for completion in 2004.