TOMFRIEDMAN(b. 1965)Untitled.Signed "Friedman" on a label adhered to the reverse. Ink and colored pencil on paper.42 x 42 in. (106.7 x 106.7 cm).Executed in 1995.This work is unique.Provenance
Feature Inc., New YorkLiterature
G. Celant, ed., Tom Friedman, Milan 2002, p. 276 (illustrated)"I only hope that we don't lose sight of one thing - that it was all started by a mouse." (Walt Disney)

The body of work that comprises Tom Friedman's oeuvre represents one of the most imaginative and captivating approaches to creating and thinking about contemporary art, executed to date.

"Friedman considers and toys with how apartness is a part of everything being what it is. How things come to be what they are, and how that requires a consideration of what their not-being would be. Theory, comes only from the observation of what something is and isn't. It's very simple until it's not simple at all. He's found a way to follow where this line of questioning, this way of observing how things come to be understood as what they are,takes him, which is far from where something's usually considered to be. It has to do with learning to be ignorant about things" (B. Hainley, Tom Friedman, London 2001, p. 75).

One of the distinguishing characteristics of Friedman's art is the quantity of time and labor-intensive processes he employs. He tends to propose an idea to himself ; a challenge to overcome or a problem to solve. "Friedman does not so much as will the piece into existence as gently coax it from its imaginary state into one that is more tactile". Despite taking an unimaginably long time to execute, Friedman does not equate labor with his work's aesthetic value. The present lot is no exception. Upon initial inspection Untitled, 1995 appears to be a colorful and extraordinarily complex abstract composition where the constructed forms gradually decrease in size and recede toward the center of the composition. When examined more closely, the viewer finds that Friedman has obsessively reproduced a line drawing of Mickey Mouse's head, repeated hundreds of times in varying sizes, one overlapping the other. The resulting linear enclosures are filled in using colored pencils in a wide array of colors.

The role that color plays in Friedman's work is especially engrossing. He illustrates a strong penchant for bright hues and when possible, a prismatic multihued mélange of colors. This does not seem intended to solely amuse the eye, but rather to assign an "indexical dimension of color, with the maximum number of colors referring to the greatest possible variety of experiences and objects in the world" (ibid.). The way he has employed color in the present lot reinforces these ideals. They serve as a type of enticement; seducing the audience, pulling them in to the work, past the initial visual bombardment of color and form to discover the underlying camoflagued subject—Mickey Mouse. Once the viewer becomes cognizant of the presence of Mickey Mouse, this image becomes unavoidable.

"For me it's not just a formal game. Or it is , it's not dealing so specifically with the physical elements, but instead with the idea. So I think in terms of how they reveal themselves to the viewer. My interest is in how things categorize information and how one deciphers an object. It revolves around the questions that you ask, and how one deciphers an object. It revolves around the questions that you ask, and how you process all that information and come to some kind of conclusion…What is most specific to me is that process of discovery" (Tom Friedman taken from an interview with R. Schorr in B. Hainley, D. Cooper and A. Searle, Tom Friedman, London 2001, p. 123).