Published by SKIRA. Text by Michelle Grabner, Andrew Russeth, Jeanne Dunning, Pamela Fraser, Judy Ledgerwood, José Lerma, Inigo Manglano-Ovalle, Cauleen Smith, Phillip Vanderhyden, John Waters.
The Chicago-based multimedia artist and sculptor Tony Tasset (born 1960) once said, “I’m not going for originality, I’m striving for the quintessential.” Tasset indeed wears his diverse influences on his sleeve, drawing from high modernism, folk, vernacular and performance art. Through these various lenses, he interrogates and satirizes institutions—galleries, museums and public art—and his own position within them. This egalitarian ethic has generated a number of much-beloved public sculptures and large-scale installations, such as Toby’s Plaza (2018) in his hometown, Cleveland, Ohio. This hardcover volume contains 200 reproductions chosen by the artist and extensive essays by curator Michelle Grabner and art writer Andrew Russeth. Tasset also invited fellow artists he admires to write on one of his works, enlisting Jeanne Dunning, Pamela Fraser, Judy Ledgerwood, José Lerma, Inigo Manglano-Ovalle, Cauleen Smith, Phillip Vanderhyden and John Waters.
Published by University Galleries of Illinois State University. Edited by Barry Blinderman. Essay by Hamza Walker.
Bound by an overarching sincerity and a yearning for the ideal, Tony Tasset's wry work has confronted the confluences of art, contemporary culture and the everyday since the mid-1980s. Recently, Tasset has turned his investigations inward, using his personal life as a self-effacing foil to address social stereotypes, conflicts of the ego and how we see ourselves through media-influenced perspectives.
Tony Tasset