Tom Otterness
Encyclopedia
Sculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
whose works adorn parks, plazas, subway stations, libraries, courthouses and museums in New York
New York City
New York is the most populous city in the United States and the center of the New York Metropolitan Area, one of the most populous metropolitan areas in the world. New York exerts a significant impact upon global commerce, finance, media, art, fashion, research, technology, education, and...
---most notably in Rockefeller Park in Battery Park City and in the 14th Street/8th Avenue subway
New York City Subway
The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the City of New York and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, a subsidiary agency of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and also known as MTA New York City Transit...
station---and other cities around the world. He was the first artist ever to have contributed a balloon to the Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade. "…he made a giant Humpty Dumpty suspended in an upside-down tumble, as though he might have jumped from one of the swanky Central Park West rooftops…"
His style is often described as cartoonish and cheerful but tends to carry a political punch. His sculptures are filled with multiple meanings and 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
Sewer alligator
Sewer alligator stories date back to the late 1920s and early 1930s, in most instances they are part of contemporary legend. They are based upon reports of alligator sightings in rather unorthodox locations, in particular New York City.-Legend:...
crawling out from under a sewer cover. The main theme of his work seems to be the struggle of the little man against the capitalist machine in a difficult and strange city. His aesthetic can be seen as a riff on capitalist realism
Capitalist realism
Capitalist realism was a German art movement of the early 1960s.The phrase first appeared in the title of the 1963 art exhibition in Düsseldorf, Demonstration for Capitalist Realism, featuring the work of Gerhard Richter, Sigmar Polke, Wolf Vostell and Konrad Lueg.Capitalist realism can also be...
and blends high and low, cute and cutting
Known primarily as a public artist, Otterness has exhibited in popular exhibitions in locations across the United States and around the world, including New York City, Indianapolis
Indianapolis, Indiana
Indianapolis is the capital of the U.S. state of Indiana, and the county seat of Marion County, Indiana. As of the 2010 United States Census, the city's population is 839,489. It is by far Indiana's largest city and, as of the 2010 U.S...
, Beverly Hills
Beverly Hills, California
Beverly Hills is an affluent city located in Los Angeles County, California, United States. With a population of 34,109 at the 2010 census, up from 33,784 as of the 2000 census, it is home to numerous Hollywood celebrities. Beverly Hills and the neighboring city of West Hollywood are together...
, the Hague, Munich, Paris, Valencia and Venice. His studio is located in the Gowanus neighborhood in Brooklyn
Brooklyn
Brooklyn is the most populous of New York City's five boroughs, with nearly 2.6 million residents, and the second-largest in area. Since 1896, Brooklyn has had the same boundaries as Kings County, which is now the most populous county in New York State and the second-most densely populated...
.
Early career
Otterness studied at the Art Students League of New YorkArt Students League of New York
The Art Students League of New York is an art school located on West 57th Street in New York City. The League has historically been known for its broad appeal to both amateurs and professional artists, and has maintained for over 130 years a tradition of offering reasonably priced classes on a...
in 1970 and at the Independent Study Program of the Whitney Museum of American Art
Whitney Museum of American Art
The Whitney Museum of American Art, often referred to simply as "the Whitney", is an art museum with a focus on 20th- and 21st-century American art. Located at 945 Madison Avenue at 75th Street in New York City, the Whitney's permanent collection contains more than 18,000 works in a wide variety of...
in 1973. He was an active member of the artists' group Colab
Colab
Colab is the commonly used abbreviation of the New York City artists' group Collaborative Projects, which was formed after a series of open meetings between artists of various disciplines. Colab came together as a collective in 1977, and initially received an NEA Workshop Grant through Center for...
(Collaborative Projects) from its inception in 1977. This group was distinguished for its politically engaged open membership.
Otterness began his career as a public sculptor during this period with Colab. He sold small, plaster figures for $4.99 at Artists Space in New York for the 1979 holiday season. His inspiration was the plaster replicas of Jesus and Elvis and Santería
Santería
Santería is a syncretic religion of West African and Caribbean origin influenced by Roman Catholic Christianity, also known as Regla de Ocha, La Regla Lucumi, or Lukumi. Its liturgical language, a dialect of Yoruba, is also known as Lucumi....
sculptures in botanica shops in the Bronx. "I thought 'Oh, this is public art…This is something that everyone can afford and take home.'" The next year he made a series of small plaster "proto monuments" for Colab's 1980 Times Square show, which he helped organize. This show featured inexpensive works by some 150 artists, including then unknowns Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat
Jean-Michel Basquiat was an American artist. His career in art began as a graffiti artist in New York City in the late 1970s, and in the 1980s produced Neo-expressionist painting.-Early life:...
and Keith Haring
Keith Haring
Keith Haring was an artist and social activist whose work responded to the New York City street culture of the 1980s.-Early life:...
. He began showing with New York's Brooke Alexander Gallery soon after.
Exhibitions
In 1987, Otterness exhibited his work The Tables at the Museum of Modern Art "Projects" show. White-collar workers, blue-collar workers, cops, radicals, captains of industry were displayed on four bronze picnic tables in the MoMA sculpture garden. The show travelled to the IVAM Centre Julio Gonzalez in Valencia; Portikus/Senckenbergmuseum in Frankfurt am Main; and Haags Gemeentemuseum in The Hague.In 2005, "Tom Otterness on Broadway", his largest exhibition to date, featured 25 different works installed between Columbus Circle and 168th Street in Washington Heights. The project was sponsored by the City of New York Parks and Recreation Department, the Broadway Mall Association, and Marlborough Gallery, and traveled to three other cities—Indianapolis, Beverly Hills, and Grand Rapids, Michigan
Grand Rapids, Michigan
Grand Rapids is a city in the U.S. state of Michigan. The city is located on the Grand River about 40 miles east of Lake Michigan. As of the 2010 census, the city population was 188,040. In 2010, the Grand Rapids metropolitan area had a population of 774,160 and a combined statistical area, Grand...
. The Grand Rapids exhibition featured more than 40 works across two miles of the city's downtown area and at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park.
Public art
Many of Otterness's public works can be found in New York City. The Real World, located in Battery Park City was commissioned in 1986 and installed in 1992; this sculpture ensemble is meant to represent the world outside the playground, "a broad social allegory on art and life, where the games of power and control are played out in miniature by Otterness's adorable and cunning characters…an imaginative park with things to touch and stories to invent." Miniature figures parade along a penny-strewn brick path. Among the groupings, one can find these tiny figures playing chess as well as pushing, celebrating atop, or getting rolled over by a giant sized penny; a well-dressed Humpty Dumpty shaped fiddler sits precariously on the roof of a falling-down house.
Otterness is perhaps best known to New Yorkers for his 2002 Life Underground
Life Underground
Life Underground is a permanent public artwork created by American sculptor Tom Otterness for the 14th Street – Eighth Avenue station of the New York City Subway. It was commissioned by the Metropolitan Transportation Authority's Arts for Transit program for US$200,000 — one percent of the...
installation, which is located in the 14th Street–Eighth Avenue New York City Subway
New York City Subway
The New York City Subway is a rapid transit system owned by the City of New York and leased to the New York City Transit Authority, a subsidiary agency of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority and also known as MTA New York City Transit...
station. It is a rambling sculptural group that consists of over 100 cast-bronze sculptures placed throughout the platforms and stairways of the A, C, E, and L lines of the station. Part of the Metropolitan Transit Authority (MTA) of New York Arts for Transit Program, which has commissioned more than 170 permanent works of art to decorate the city subway stations, it is one of the most popular in the subway system. The piece took over 10 years from start to finish. The New York Times notes, "Mr. Otterness worked hard to find creative ways to place his sculpture, navigating around the rules of stations design." Taking inspiration from the cartoonists and illustrators of the past, including Thomas Nast
Thomas Nast
Thomas Nast was a German-born American caricaturist and editorial cartoonist who is considered to be the "Father of the American Cartoon". He was the scourge of Boss Tweed and the Tammany Hall machine...
's depictions of the corrupt New York City mayor, Boss Tweed
Boss Tweed
William Magear Tweed – often erroneously referred to as William Marcy Tweed , and widely known as "Boss" Tweed – was an American politician most notable for being the "boss" of Tammany Hall, the Democratic Party political machine that played a major role in the politics of 19th century...
, Otterness' works are at times very cartoonish and cheerful, and the forms of his sculptures often have a humorous look. Examples of figures in the subway installation include a woman toting a nearly lifesize subway token under her arm; a well-dressed fare jumper crawling under a metal gate; a homeless woman being rousted by the police; two figures holding a cross-cut saw, about to cut into an I-beam that holds up a stairway. One of the main themes running through the various groupings, which read like comic book panels, is the idea of resistance—petty offenses against authority perpetrated by the disaffected.
In September 2010, six new Otterness Sculptures were installed along Columbia Avenue in Connell, Washington. Otterness was hired by the Washington State Arts Commission to create the bronze figures and stone tables and benches for Downtown Connell. The art was paid for with funds from the newly completed Coyote Ridge Correctional Center Expansion Project. Washington State law allocates one-half of 1 percent of the state's capital construction budget for public art.
Controversy
Journalist Gary IndianaGary Indiana
Gary Indiana is an American writer, filmmaker, and visual artist. He teaches philosophy and literature at the New School in New York City. He divides his time between New York and Los Angeles.- Fiction :...
criticized Otterness for an independent work done in 1977 called "Shot Dog Film" a looped video piece, in which, Otterness adopted a dog, then shot it to death for what Indiana called "the fun of recording his infantile, sadistic depravity on film."
In spring 2007, a candidate for Student Government Association president at Wichita State University questioned the use of $150,000 in student funds to pay part of the commission for a new campus sculpture by the Wichita-native artist. The 20 ft. long piece was installed on Monday, October 27, 2008.
Otterness issued an apology which was reported in the Brooklyn Daily Eagle in April 2008, "Thirty years ago when I was 25 years old, I made a film in which I shot a dog. It was an indefensible act that I am deeply sorry for. Many of us have experienced profound emotional turmoil and despair. Few have made the mistake I made. I hope people can find it in their hearts to forgive me -- Tom Otterness." The Brooklyn Daily Eagle article stated: "While it remains to be seen if this will mollify Otterness’ critics, it does appear to be the apology many are asking for."
In September 2011 Otterness was awarded a $750,000 contract for art in the new Central Subway
Central Subway
The Central Subway is an extension of the Muni Metro light rail system in San Francisco, California, from the Caltrain commuter rail depot at 4th and King streets to Chinatown. The subway is the second phase of the Third Street Light Rail Project...
project in San Francisco. The San Francisco Arts Commission claimed to be unaware of "Shot Dog Film" when they awarded the contract. The mayor of San Francisco has called for the contract to be rescinded, calling "Shot Dog Film" "deeply disturbing".