Tom Otterness

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Tom Otterness (b. 1952 in Wichita, Kansas) is an American sculptor whose works adorn parks in New York---most notably in Battery Park City^[1] and in the 14th Street/8th Avenue subway station---and other cities around the world. His style is very cartoonish and cheerful, and the forms of his sculptures often consist of many blobs and pipes, giving them a humorous look. These sculptures depict, among other things, huge pennies, pudgy characters in business suits with moneybag heads, helmeted workers holding giant tools, and crocodiles crawling out from under sewer covers. 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.

As primarily a public artist, Otterness' has shown popular exhibitions in locations across the United States, including New York City, Indianapolis, and Beverly Hills.

His most recent exhibition of public sculpture in Grand Rapids, Michigan is his largest to date, featuring more than 40 works across two miles of the city's downtown area and at Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park.

Contents 1 Notable works 2 Controversy 3 Notes 4 External links

[edit] Notable works

Otterness is best known to New Yorkers for his "Life Underground" series of sculptures, which are primarily located in the 14th/8th avenue New York Subway station, which was commissioned in 2000 and fully installed by 2002.^[2]

[edit] Controversy

Journalist Gary Indiana criticized Otterness for an independent work done while part of the East Village art scene in the mid-eighties called "Shot Dog Piece", in which Otterness allegedly "adopted a dog and then shot it to death for the fun of recording his infantile, sadistic depravity on film."^[3]

[edit] Notes

1. ^ ""The Real World"" The Battery Park City Authority
2. ^ " Adler, Margot: "Subway Art: New York's Underground Treasures", Morning Edition. October 18, 2004.
3. ^ Indiana, Gary: "One Brief, Scuzzy Moment: Memories of the East Village Art Scene", New York Magazine. December 6, 2004.

[edit] External links

• Tom Otterness's Web Site