| Dates: | born 1964
| | Biography: | (artist biography as of 2006)
Born 1964, Queens, NY, USA. Lives in
Manhattan, NY USA.
Works in Brooklyn, NY, USA
Selected solo exhibitions
Die or Join, 2006, ICA, Philadelphia, PA,
USA
For the Gentle Wind Doth Move Silently
Invisibly, 2005, Cleveland Public Art,
Mall B, Cleveland, OH, USA
Llano del Rio, 2000, Shoshana Wayne
Gallery, CA, USA
Schmidt Contemporary Art, 1998, St.
Louis, MO, USA
Overmounted Interior. 1996 Basilico Fine
Arts, New York, NY, USA
Selected group exhibitions
Gadget, 2005, Cincinnati Arts Center,
Cincinnati, OH. USA
Down the Garden Path: The Artist's
Garden After Modernism, 2005. Queens
Museum of Art, Queens. NY USA
The Voting Booth Project,2004. Parsons
School of Design New York, NY, USA
Lustwarande 04: Disorientation By
Beauty. 2004. De Oude Warande,
Tilburg, Netherlands
Extinct Extant: Art in the Environment II,
2004, part of The Big Nothing. The
Schuylkill Center. Philadelphia, PA, USA
Absence into Presence: The Art,
Architecture and Design of
Remembrance. 2003, Aronson Galleries.
Parsons School of Design, New York,
NY. USA
Metrospective, 2003, New York City Hall
Park, New York, NY USA
Pursuit of Happiness, 2003, Kunsthalle
Bern, Bern, Switzerland
Eire | Land, 2003, McMullen Museum of
Art, Boston College, Chestnut Hill. MA,
USA
| Bienal Ceará América, 2002. De ponta-
cabeça, Bienal de Arte Contemporânea
de las Americas, Fortaleza-Ceará, Brazil
The Presidential Suite, 2002, Nassau
County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor,
NY, USA
Whitney Biennial, 2002, Whitney
Museum of American Art, New York, NY
USA
Never Never Land, 2002, Rutgers-
Camden Center for the Arts, Camden,
NJ, USA
Pictures, Patents, Monkeys, and More...
On Collecting, 2002, Institute of
Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, PA,
USA
Selected commissions
Irish Hunger Memorial. 2002, Battery
Park, New York, USA
Further reading
Daniel Baird, The 2002 Whitney
Biennial, The Whitney Museum of Art',
The Brooklyn Rail, Early Summer, 2002,
pp. 15-16
Steven Litt, 'Making Waves: Wind
Patterns Shape Urns on the Mall', The
Plain Dealer, 1 October, Arts and Life front
page, pp. E1,E4 (illus.) 2004
William R. Kaizen, : 'Brian Tolle',BOMB,
summer 2001, pp. 56-63
Simon Schama, 'Pangs A Patch of
Earth', The New Yorker, 19-26 August,
2002, pp. 58, 60
Roberta Smith. 'A Memorial Remembers
The Hungry', The New York Times, 16
July, 2002, pp. E1. E3
| | | Source: | International 06, Liverpool Biennial exhibition catalogue | | | Date of source: | 2006 |
|
| | Description: | Concerned with memory and the
memorial, Tolle's projects, such as the
Irish Hunger Memorial, completed in
2002 in New York's Battery Park, have
made him one of the most celebrated
artists working in public space in the
USA.
The form is often historicist - extensive
research and laborious craft, frequently
involving a team of experts, go into the
creation of apparently 'literal' replicas of
objects, buildings or environments. But
the purpose of this focus on the past is
to satisfy the present, and the process
is subservient to the end-users'
experience of the subject matter - in film
terms, this is docu-drama, not documentary.
Tolle stresses the affective experience:
beauty is as critical as the concept, and
the viewer is located inside the work (as
conjuror of an absent presence) rather
than outside it. Significantly, the
memorial mentioned above is named for
the 'Irish Hunger', a subjective
experience of continuing human need,
not for the 'Irish Famine', an objective
historical scarcity of resources.
Certain events in history are privileged
depending on the historian's values, and
there are parallels for (art) objects and
buildings in our environment.
Tolle is fascinated by the process
whereby we give imaginary value to
certain objects, and by the impact of this
process on the material world.
Lewis Biggs
| | Description Source: | International 06, Liverpool Biennial exhibition catalogue | | Description Source Date: | 2006 | | Gender: | male | | Type: | person |
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