Tom Burr

Exhibited works
Images
Image
Caption

Where there's smoke, 2011
Radiator and Playboy
96 x 25 x 45 cm

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Caption

Beard Board, 2011
Wood and paper framed in plexiglas
48 x 48 cm

Image
Caption

Beard Board, 2011
Wood and paper framed in plexiglas
48 x 48 cm

Image
Caption

Beard Board, 2011
Wood and paper framed in plexiglas
48 x 48 cm

Biography
Biography

Born in 1963, Connecticut, US. Lives and works in New York, US.

 

In his enigmatic, mixed-media sculptures and installations, Tom Burr explores the ways in which we imbue spaces and things with our memories and emotions. As he explains: “I know that objects retain the stain of people and that our memory can be physically located out of longing or grief.” Though his work is grounded in his own memories, it is deliberately ambiguous, allowing viewers to invest it with their own lived experiences. He uses what he calls a “focused spectrum” of humble materials and found objects, such as plywood, old blankets and t-shirts, radiators, doors, books and bits of hardware. By draping nylon over a radiator, encasing sneakers in yellow Plexiglas, or constructing stripped-down rooms, Burr materialises his (and our) memories.

 

In his Mammal Board series, for example, Burr compiles black-and-white photographs of animals. He subliminally hints at the way human identification takes place through found and often highly arbitrary imagery.

 

CV

Exhibitions at Galerie Neu