Tom Otterness

rdf:langString Tom Otterness

rdf:langString Tom Otterness

rdf:langString Tom Otterness

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rdf:langString Tom Otterness

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rdf:langString July 2018

rdf:langString Sculpture, Prints and Drawing

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rdf:langString American

rdf:langString Tom Otterness (born 1952) is an American sculptor best known as one of America's most prolific public artists. Otterness's works adorn parks, plazas, subway stations, libraries, courthouses and museums around the world, notably in New York City's Rockefeller Park in Battery Park City and Life Underground in the 14th Street – Eighth Avenue New York Subway station. He contributed a balloon (a giant upside-down Humpty Dumpty) to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. In 1994 he was elected as a member of the National Academy Museum. His style is often described as cartoonish and cheerful, but also political. His sculptures allude to sex, class, money and race. These sculptures depict, among other things, huge pennies, pudgy characters in business suits with moneybag heads, helmeted workers holding giant tools, and an alligator crawling out from under a sewer cover. His aesthetic can be seen as a riff on capitalist realism. Otterness has also been the target of criticism for filming himself fatally shooting a dog that he had adopted from a shelter, for use in an exhibition. The artist has since called the creation of the film, "an indefensible act that I am deeply sorry for." Since the mid-2000s, animal rights groups have protested commissions given to Otterness, leading to several of his public art projects being cancelled. Known primarily as a public artist, Otterness has exhibited across the United States and internationally, including New York City, Indianapolis, Beverly Hills, The Hague, Munich, Paris, Valencia and Venice. His studio is located in Gowanus, Brooklyn.