Hazmat Love

Tom Friedman is one of his generation’s best tinkerers. He is both a minimalist, using common materials simply, and a maximalist, creating exuberant and improbable artworks from Styrofoam, spaghetti, eraser shavings, garbage bags, toothpicks, bubble gum, dust, soap, and yarn. A tiny self-portrait bust the size of an aspirin is carved from soap; a box of cooked spaghetti is joined end-to-end to create a tangled ball of twine. Friedman applies painstaking processes to create surprising yet charming works that speak of the joys and frustrations of everyday life.

Since 2007, Friedman has been creating sculpture and sculptural environments made of aluminum foil, roasting pans, and baking tins. The supple yet durable materials are easily shaped and keep their edges and fingerprint divots when cast into the high gloss modern material of stainless steel.

In Hazmat Love we see two men in protective gear wrestling—are they trying to save themselves, or each other? We can draw some paradoxical meanings from this work. Hazmat suits are specialized gear designed to protect humans from our own disasters—in the environment, perhaps in the kitchen. In the labor-intensive work, the artist shows the paradoxes of the life we humans create.

Friedman, born in St. Louis in 1965, lives and works in Massachusetts. He received his BFA in graphic design at Washington University, St. Louis, in 1988, and his MFA in sculpture at the University of Illinois at Chicago in 1990.