Tom Van Sant
Encyclopedia
Tom Van Sant is a sculptor, painter, and conceptual artist. In his professional work he has executed over sixty major sculpture and mural commissions for public spaces around the world. These include the international airports of Honolulu, Taipei
and Los Angeles
, the civic centers of Los Angeles, Newport Beach and Inglewood, and corporate centers in Taiwan
, Manila
, Salt Lake City, Dallas, Honolulu and San Francisco.
He had a long association with architect William Pereira
and his work has adorned over a dozen Pereira buildings. Van Sant has had fifteen one-man exhibits in the United States, Europe and Australia. His art is represented in public and private collections throughout the world.
Van Sants' professional skills and intellectual interests range to architectural design, city planning, art education and advanced technical invention. His large scale conceptual art projects of the 1980's led to the creation of The GeoSphere Project, an ambitious environmental display system designed to illustrate the issues of Earth resource management.
The GeoSphere Image marks a milestone in cartographic history. It is the first satellite map of the Earth, showing the real world it appears from space. The work required one year of effort on the world's most powerful graphics computers by Van Sant, technical director Van Warren of Jet Propulsion Laboratory
, and assisted by Jim Knighton and Leo Blume. The image was first published as the title page of the National Geographic World Atlas.
In 1992, Mr. Van Sant created an installation called "the Earth Situation Room", an interactive project which feature visualizations of earth systems and changes. This project was first shown at ECO-92, the Earth Summit
, in Rio de Janeiro.
Al Gore cited Mr. Van Sant for this beautiful and useful 3d image of the Earth in the film An Inconvenient Truth
.
In the summer of 2007 he participated in the Chicago
public art
exhibition "Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet
."
Taipei
Taipei City is the capital of the Republic of China and the central city of the largest metropolitan area of Taiwan. Situated at the northern tip of the island, Taipei is located on the Tamsui River, and is about 25 km southwest of Keelung, its port on the Pacific Ocean...
and Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, the civic centers of Los Angeles, Newport Beach and Inglewood, and corporate centers in Taiwan
Taiwan
Taiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
, Manila
Manila
Manila is the capital of the Philippines. It is one of the sixteen cities forming Metro Manila.Manila is located on the eastern shores of Manila Bay and is bordered by Navotas and Caloocan to the north, Quezon City to the northeast, San Juan and Mandaluyong to the east, Makati on the southeast,...
, Salt Lake City, Dallas, Honolulu and San Francisco.
He had a long association with architect William Pereira
William Pereira
William Leonard Pereira was an American architect from Chicago, Illinois, of Portuguese ancestry who was noted for his futuristic designs of landmark buildings such as the Transamerica Pyramid in San Francisco...
and his work has adorned over a dozen Pereira buildings. Van Sant has had fifteen one-man exhibits in the United States, Europe and Australia. His art is represented in public and private collections throughout the world.
Van Sants' professional skills and intellectual interests range to architectural design, city planning, art education and advanced technical invention. His large scale conceptual art projects of the 1980's led to the creation of The GeoSphere Project, an ambitious environmental display system designed to illustrate the issues of Earth resource management.
The GeoSphere Image marks a milestone in cartographic history. It is the first satellite map of the Earth, showing the real world it appears from space. The work required one year of effort on the world's most powerful graphics computers by Van Sant, technical director Van Warren of Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Jet Propulsion Laboratory
Jet Propulsion Laboratory is a federally funded research and development center and NASA field center located in the San Gabriel Valley area of Los Angeles County, California, United States. The facility is headquartered in the city of Pasadena on the border of La Cañada Flintridge and Pasadena...
, and assisted by Jim Knighton and Leo Blume. The image was first published as the title page of the National Geographic World Atlas.
In 1992, Mr. Van Sant created an installation called "the Earth Situation Room", an interactive project which feature visualizations of earth systems and changes. This project was first shown at ECO-92, the Earth Summit
Earth Summit
The United Nations Conference on Environment and Development , also known as the Rio Summit, Rio Conference, Earth Summit was a major United Nations conference held in Rio de Janeiro from 3 June to 14 June 1992.-Overview:...
, in Rio de Janeiro.
Al Gore cited Mr. Van Sant for this beautiful and useful 3d image of the Earth in the film An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth
An Inconvenient Truth is a 2006 documentary film directed by Davis Guggenheim about former United States Vice President Al Gore's campaign to educate citizens about global warming via a comprehensive slide show that, by his own estimate, he has given more than a thousand times.Premiering at the...
.
In the summer of 2007 he participated in the Chicago
Chicago
Chicago is the largest city in the US state of Illinois. With nearly 2.7 million residents, it is the most populous city in the Midwestern United States and the third most populous in the US, after New York City and Los Angeles...
public art
Public art
The term public art properly refers to works of art in any media that have been planned and executed with the specific intention of being sited or staged in the physical public domain, usually outside and accessible to all...
exhibition "Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet
Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet
Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet is a public art project dedicated to increasing awareness of global warming.A nonprofit corporation, "Cool Globes: Hot Ideas for a Cooler Planet" sponsored a Chicago public art exhibit of 125 globes decorated with solutions to global warming, placed in...
."