The first thing that struck me about Tom Friedman, while viewing his pieces and reading this article, was the link between the viewer’s believe and the piece itself. A lot of Friedman’s pieces call upon the viewer to either wholly trust the artist’s statements about his pieces and the processes in which they were made or to question the truth and logic behind the art. For example, the piece 1,000 Hours of Staring (1992-97), in which the artist has hung a blank piece of paper that he claims he has stared out for 1,000 hours. Of course, unless one has spent time studying Friedman studying this paper in his studio for the hours, one cannot be certain that he has actually stared at this blank paper for the alloted amount of time. When I first saw a picture of this piece in a book, my immediate reaction was, “did he really stare at this for 1,000 hours?” Maybe he skimped on a few minutes here and there? Another example of this trust that the viewer has to place into the artist is seen in Untitled (A Curse) (1992). An at-first-glance empty pedestal holds a ball of air that has been cursed by a witch. This piece not only asks the viewer to trust that the artist actually got a witch to curse the space but also asks the viewer if they believe in curses or witches. The artist asks the viewer to place a belief in an ordinary object and this belief affects the way the viewer perceives the piece.
Another thing that strikes me about Tom Friedman is the fact that a lot of his pieces only develop meaning through the understanding of how they are made. Many of his pieces only develop their meaning to the viewer through the statements of how they were constructed. For example, upon just viewing the piece Hot Balls, the viewer sees a collection of varying sizes of rubber balls. The viewer can appreciate the different colors and sizes of the balls upon just viewing the piece. After the viewer reads that the piece was constructed by balls that Friedman stole over a period of 6 months, the piece begins to take on a new meaning. What if I presented you with a glass bottle on a pedestal? You might note the smoothness and color of the glass. You might comment on the size of the bottle. Now what if I told you that I whispered my deepest secrets into the bottle? These revelations bring a kind of specialness to an object that you at first thought was “ordinary.”
In the interview, Friedman says, “I think everyone looks at things based on what they know. Even things that are unfamiliar, the translate them into something they can understand.” These statements reminded me of how during our first project critique, everyone was comparing the sculptures to common things, such as “this looks like fungus” or “this looks like mold.” Of course we are going to do this! From the beginning of our lives, we’ve been comparing and associating things. As children we molded play dough into dogs and stacked legos to look like spaceships. Perhaps you’ve looked at clouds and turned them into faces? We are programed to categorize things to make the world easier to understand. Most of the time are first thoughts on a piece are going to be what it’s look compares to in our world. I think it’s great that Friedman realizes this fact and uses it to his advantage in his pieces.
The last thing I want to comment on in relation to these interviews is the idea of repetition. Hudson points out the fact that many people think of Friedman’s work as having an “obsessive nature.” A lot of Friedman’s work consists of repetition and pattern, such as Untitled (1997) which uses marker pen bleeding to create and weblike image. This repetition comments on the nature of what makes an object “ordinary.” Ordinary refers to something that we see a lot of. How many times a day do you see a plastic water bottle? Let’s say I see 10 plastic water bottles throughout my day. I think nothing of it. Now let’s say those same 10 plastic water bottles are glued to a wall. We see so many of the same objects over and over again but don’t really think about what that means until we see them repeated in a piece of artwork.
I think a lot of Tom Friedman’s work is very interesting. My favorite is probably the splattered construction paper human. It’s entitled Untitled (2000) and I have included a pic below. I have only had the opportunity to view the pieces in books and in pictures on the internet, but I’m interested in how I would react to some of them in person.
