.gif)
Tom Carr (artist)
Encyclopedia
Tom Carr is a contemporary artist
, who lives and works at Sant Quirze del Vallès.
Professor at the Escola Massana de Barcelona, and has taught courses for the School of Visual Arts
(SVA) of New York
. Hence the concepts of space plus time have been from the beginning constant references in his work, such as the installation for the Espai 10 of the Miró Foundation in 1981. With that work he began what would be a constant in all his work: the expression of a maximum with a minimum of elements--what Giralt Miracle was to call "Spatial Minimal". The material was stretched cloth, string and painted sticks; later on there would be shadows ("Posiciones relatives", Galeria Metrònom, 1983), light reflected with mirrors ("Continuum espacial", Galeria 13, Joan Prats, Instituteo de Estudios Norteamericanos, Galeria Maeght, 1984) and slide projections: over facades of churches (Cadaqués, the Seu Vella of Lerida); in interiors ("Cripsis", Museo de la Ciencia, and Capella, Sala Moncada of the Caixa in Barcelona and Catedral, also in the Seu of Lérida); over small objects ("Natura Morta", Museu d’Art of Sabadell, "En tres dimensiones", Fundación la Caixa in Madrid, and "Trigon" in Graz).
After 1983 he began developing simultaneously, in addition to such installations, sculptural work based on architectonic, stereotyped forms: towers, stairways, arches, ziggurats, walls…utilizing wood which he then painted (Gamarra and Garrigues, Madrid, 1986; Pro Arte, Freiburg; Pierre Huber, Geneva, 1987; Hans Barlach, Cologne; Krief, Paris; y Vorstadt, Basel, 1987). The formats for these works ranged from a small piece of six centimeters to 12 meters ("Long Red Wall" Museo de Alava). Later in Venice he built "Una Opera" in painted wood 360 x 820 x 670 centimeters which is now in a private collection in Florence. These forms were also used for outdoor sculptures. The first was installed in 1987 in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento of Sant Boi del Llobregat, and others in the gardens of the Palace of the Magdalena in Santander, in Pontevedra, and at the Miró Foundation of Barcelona.
At a new stage the forms simplify to form; disks, cylinders, polygons, star shapes, helicoids, and spirals which tend to approach the realm of the symbolic to express elements of the world of the spirit: time, being, center, and these were represented in the Gallery Baudoin Lebon in Paris, the Salvador Riera in Barcelona, the Jan Baum in Los Angeles, and the Museu de la Pasión in Valladolid. Public sculptures of this stage include: "Punta de Terradets" in Pallars Jussá, "Open" in ORF Landestudios Steiermark, and, "Cylinder" in Barcelona (Vila Olímpic). This stage culminates with a work of great dimensions (Seed and Helix ) which meant a complicated construction requiring two years of work and a numerous team of collaborators.
Afterwards, his work on the theme of time relating to fire and water comes together in two emblematic exhibits: "Ignis et Tempus" in Graz (CC Galerie) and "Aqua et Tempus" in Tarragona (Museo de Arte Moderno).
Later he presented "Cyclus" at the Centro de Arte Santa Mónica in Barcelona, an installation based on the wheel of time and its correspondences and also an urban project that will "tack" different places to one geographic center.
In 2002 “Cycle et coincidence” was the title given to his show at the, Musée d'Art Moderne de Céret
, in France.
Also during 2007, he showed a project named “from the imperfect garden” consisting of painted wood and string structures and digital prints on canvas at the Galeria Astarté, Madrid; Galería Sala Maior, Porto, Portugal; Studio Franck Bordas, Paris; the Alliance Française, Sabadell and the Galerie Bartha & Sernaclens in Geneva.
In 2007 Tom Carr installed the permanent outdoor sculpture group “I by Numbers”, which has subject is the individuals reading and assimilating art, at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Céret
.
PANTA REI polished stainless steel, mast/wind vane and elements on the facades of the buildings on the block of the school, Frederic Mistral - Tècnic Eulàlia de Sarrià, Barcelona, 2005
PEEP-WHEEL painted stainless steel, diameter 800 cm. x 200 cm., r2 M-50, Madrid, 2004
AQUA et SOL continuous pavement at their pools, Waterworld, Lloret de Mar, 2003
OPEN II painted steel, 600 x 360 x 515 cm., Österreichischer Skulpturenpark (Austrian Sculpture Park), Graz, Austria, 2003
ENTRADA continuous pavement at the entrance at Aqua Diver, Platja d’Aro, 2003
PISCINA A L‘INVERS installation in a restaurant at Waterworld, Lloret de Mar, 2003
DUC polished stainless steel and black granite, Sant Quirze del Vallès, 2003
CONTINUUM polished and painted stainless steel, 15.00 x 4 x 4 cm central element and the rest are variable sizes. Municipality of Sant Quirze del Vallès, Barcelona and Antilla, Cuba, 2002
PRISMA polished stainless steel, 45.2 x 250 x 45.2 cm, Private residence, Col·lecció Fontana Destriuex, Tarragona 2000
CYLINDER 1992 polished stainless steel, 99 x 99 x 45 cm, Jardins del Camp Nou, Futbol Club Barcelona 1999
SEED & HELIX painted stainless steel and water, 3900 x 1900 x 1900 cm, Société Générale headquarters, La Defense, Paris 1995
WIND painted metal, 200 x 200 x 870 cm, Sony Electronics Company Headquarters, San Jose California 1993
CYLINDER painted metal, 400 x 400 x 1095 cm, Villa Olímpica, Barcelona 1992
PUNTA DE TERRADETS polished stainless steel and water, 1800 x 300 x 275 cm, Pas de Terradets, Pallars Jussá, Spain 1992
OPEN painted metal, 660 x 360 x 515 cm, ORF Landestudios Steiermark, Graz, Austria 1991
AGULLA painted cement, 1200 x 150 x 150 cm, Jardí d’escultures, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona 1990
ARC DE TRIOMF painted metal, 700 x 1400 x 370 cm, Milenario de Cataluña, Solsona, Spain 1989
ENTRADA painted cement and projected light sometimes at night, 750 x 1050 x 450 cm, Moll de la Costa, Tarragona 1989
MIRADOR granite, 360 x 800 x 160 cm, Paseo de la Alameda, Pontevedra 1988
SIN TITULO painted metal, 500 x 650 x 1300 cm, Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo, jardines del palacio de la Magdalena, Santander 1988
HOMENATGE A LA UNITAT EUROPEA reinforced cement and refractory clays, 750 x 350 x 350 cm, Plaça de l’Ajuntament, Sant Boi de Llobregat 1987
Versus, Tom Carr (2003) Junta de Castilla y León, Valladolid Spain. Text by Françoise Barbe-Gall, 160 pp. ISBN 84-9718-195-6.
Tom Carr, Cycle et Coïncidence (2002) Musée d’art moderne Céret, Céret, France. Texts by Françoise Barbe-Gall and Christine Buci-Glucksmann, 104 pp. ISBN 2-901298-39-7.
Tom Carr, Orbis (2000) Generalitat de Catalunya, Departament de Cultura y Actar, Barcelona Spain. Texts by Joan-Francesc Ainaud, Sylvie Boulanger, Vicenç Altaió. 160 pp. ISBN 84-95273-41-1.
Galleries
Artist
An artist is a person engaged in one or more of any of a broad spectrum of activities related to creating art, practicing the arts and/or demonstrating an art. The common usage in both everyday speech and academic discourse is a practitioner in the visual arts only...
, who lives and works at Sant Quirze del Vallès.
Professor at the Escola Massana de Barcelona, and has taught courses for the School of Visual Arts
School of Visual Arts
The School of Visual Arts , is a proprietary art school located in Manhattan, New York City, and is widely considered to be one of the leading art schools in the United States. It was established in 1947 by co-founders Silas H. Rhodes and Burne Hogarth as the Cartoonists and Illustrators School and...
(SVA) of New York
Biography
His mother was from Valencia and his father was American. From the age of one until he was seventeen Tom lived in American university communities except for one year in Spain when he was five and learned more Spanish at a convent school. After finishing high school in the United States, he returned to Spain to study Fine Arts.Beginning
Although he graduated with painting as his specialty, he has always been attracted by the tridimensional, natural and architectural space, and sculptureSculpture
Sculpture is three-dimensional artwork created by shaping or combining hard materials—typically stone such as marble—or metal, glass, or wood. Softer materials can also be used, such as clay, textiles, plastics, polymers and softer metals...
. Hence the concepts of space plus time have been from the beginning constant references in his work, such as the installation for the Espai 10 of the Miró Foundation in 1981. With that work he began what would be a constant in all his work: the expression of a maximum with a minimum of elements--what Giralt Miracle was to call "Spatial Minimal". The material was stretched cloth, string and painted sticks; later on there would be shadows ("Posiciones relatives", Galeria Metrònom, 1983), light reflected with mirrors ("Continuum espacial", Galeria 13, Joan Prats, Instituteo de Estudios Norteamericanos, Galeria Maeght, 1984) and slide projections: over facades of churches (Cadaqués, the Seu Vella of Lerida); in interiors ("Cripsis", Museo de la Ciencia, and Capella, Sala Moncada of the Caixa in Barcelona and Catedral, also in the Seu of Lérida); over small objects ("Natura Morta", Museu d’Art of Sabadell, "En tres dimensiones", Fundación la Caixa in Madrid, and "Trigon" in Graz).
After 1983 he began developing simultaneously, in addition to such installations, sculptural work based on architectonic, stereotyped forms: towers, stairways, arches, ziggurats, walls…utilizing wood which he then painted (Gamarra and Garrigues, Madrid, 1986; Pro Arte, Freiburg; Pierre Huber, Geneva, 1987; Hans Barlach, Cologne; Krief, Paris; y Vorstadt, Basel, 1987). The formats for these works ranged from a small piece of six centimeters to 12 meters ("Long Red Wall" Museo de Alava). Later in Venice he built "Una Opera" in painted wood 360 x 820 x 670 centimeters which is now in a private collection in Florence. These forms were also used for outdoor sculptures. The first was installed in 1987 in the Plaza del Ayuntamiento of Sant Boi del Llobregat, and others in the gardens of the Palace of the Magdalena in Santander, in Pontevedra, and at the Miró Foundation of Barcelona.
At a new stage the forms simplify to form; disks, cylinders, polygons, star shapes, helicoids, and spirals which tend to approach the realm of the symbolic to express elements of the world of the spirit: time, being, center, and these were represented in the Gallery Baudoin Lebon in Paris, the Salvador Riera in Barcelona, the Jan Baum in Los Angeles, and the Museu de la Pasión in Valladolid. Public sculptures of this stage include: "Punta de Terradets" in Pallars Jussá, "Open" in ORF Landestudios Steiermark, and, "Cylinder" in Barcelona (Vila Olímpic). This stage culminates with a work of great dimensions (Seed and Helix ) which meant a complicated construction requiring two years of work and a numerous team of collaborators.
Afterwards, his work on the theme of time relating to fire and water comes together in two emblematic exhibits: "Ignis et Tempus" in Graz (CC Galerie) and "Aqua et Tempus" in Tarragona (Museo de Arte Moderno).
Later he presented "Cyclus" at the Centro de Arte Santa Mónica in Barcelona, an installation based on the wheel of time and its correspondences and also an urban project that will "tack" different places to one geographic center.
In 2002 “Cycle et coincidence” was the title given to his show at the, Musée d'Art Moderne de Céret
Musée d'Art Moderne de Céret
Le Musée d'Art Moderne de Céret is a modern art museum in Céret, Pyrénées-Orientales, France, created by Pierre Brune and Frank Burty Haviland in 1950 with the personal support of their friends Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse who were involved in its creation....
, in France.
Present
More recently, Carr has been working on and completing permanent outdoor projects. One example is Panta Rei consisting of polished stainless steel, mast/wind vane and elements on the facades of the buildings on the block of the school, Frederic Mistral - Tècnic Eulàlia de Sarriá in Barcelona in 2005. Another example is the first phase of Principium, the visualization of entrance area axis of Illa Fantasia at the Maresme in Catalonia, Spain 2006: The shapes, size and orientation of the canvases, railings, bathrooms and floor designs, and all color patterns are designed by Tom Carr.Also during 2007, he showed a project named “from the imperfect garden” consisting of painted wood and string structures and digital prints on canvas at the Galeria Astarté, Madrid; Galería Sala Maior, Porto, Portugal; Studio Franck Bordas, Paris; the Alliance Française, Sabadell and the Galerie Bartha & Sernaclens in Geneva.
In 2007 Tom Carr installed the permanent outdoor sculpture group “I by Numbers”, which has subject is the individuals reading and assimilating art, at the Musée d'Art Moderne de Céret
Musée d'Art Moderne de Céret
Le Musée d'Art Moderne de Céret is a modern art museum in Céret, Pyrénées-Orientales, France, created by Pierre Brune and Frank Burty Haviland in 1950 with the personal support of their friends Pablo Picasso and Henri Matisse who were involved in its creation....
.
Public and outdoor works
PRINCIPIUM (first phase) Concept of the visualization of entrance area axis of Illa Fantasia: shapes, size and orientation of the canvases, railings, bathrooms and floor designs, and all color patterns. Floor area, 3500 square meters. Height of canvases 15 m. Illa Fantasia, Maresme, Catalonia, 2006PANTA REI polished stainless steel, mast/wind vane and elements on the facades of the buildings on the block of the school, Frederic Mistral - Tècnic Eulàlia de Sarrià, Barcelona, 2005
PEEP-WHEEL painted stainless steel, diameter 800 cm. x 200 cm., r2 M-50, Madrid, 2004
AQUA et SOL continuous pavement at their pools, Waterworld, Lloret de Mar, 2003
OPEN II painted steel, 600 x 360 x 515 cm., Österreichischer Skulpturenpark (Austrian Sculpture Park), Graz, Austria, 2003
ENTRADA continuous pavement at the entrance at Aqua Diver, Platja d’Aro, 2003
PISCINA A L‘INVERS installation in a restaurant at Waterworld, Lloret de Mar, 2003
DUC polished stainless steel and black granite, Sant Quirze del Vallès, 2003
CONTINUUM polished and painted stainless steel, 15.00 x 4 x 4 cm central element and the rest are variable sizes. Municipality of Sant Quirze del Vallès, Barcelona and Antilla, Cuba, 2002
PRISMA polished stainless steel, 45.2 x 250 x 45.2 cm, Private residence, Col·lecció Fontana Destriuex, Tarragona 2000
CYLINDER 1992 polished stainless steel, 99 x 99 x 45 cm, Jardins del Camp Nou, Futbol Club Barcelona 1999
SEED & HELIX painted stainless steel and water, 3900 x 1900 x 1900 cm, Société Générale headquarters, La Defense, Paris 1995
WIND painted metal, 200 x 200 x 870 cm, Sony Electronics Company Headquarters, San Jose California 1993
CYLINDER painted metal, 400 x 400 x 1095 cm, Villa Olímpica, Barcelona 1992
PUNTA DE TERRADETS polished stainless steel and water, 1800 x 300 x 275 cm, Pas de Terradets, Pallars Jussá, Spain 1992
OPEN painted metal, 660 x 360 x 515 cm, ORF Landestudios Steiermark, Graz, Austria 1991
AGULLA painted cement, 1200 x 150 x 150 cm, Jardí d’escultures, Fundació Joan Miró, Barcelona 1990
ARC DE TRIOMF painted metal, 700 x 1400 x 370 cm, Milenario de Cataluña, Solsona, Spain 1989
ENTRADA painted cement and projected light sometimes at night, 750 x 1050 x 450 cm, Moll de la Costa, Tarragona 1989
MIRADOR granite, 360 x 800 x 160 cm, Paseo de la Alameda, Pontevedra 1988
SIN TITULO painted metal, 500 x 650 x 1300 cm, Universidad Internacional Menéndez Pelayo, jardines del palacio de la Magdalena, Santander 1988
HOMENATGE A LA UNITAT EUROPEA reinforced cement and refractory clays, 750 x 350 x 350 cm, Plaça de l’Ajuntament, Sant Boi de Llobregat 1987
Published books
Tom Carr, du jardin imparfait (2007) editions Bartha & Senarclens, Genève Switzerland. Text by Françoise Barbe-Gall, 47 pp. ISBN 978-2-9700578-1-9Versus, Tom Carr (2003) Junta de Castilla y León, Valladolid Spain. Text by Françoise Barbe-Gall, 160 pp. ISBN 84-9718-195-6.
Tom Carr, Cycle et Coïncidence (2002) Musée d’art moderne Céret, Céret, France. Texts by Françoise Barbe-Gall and Christine Buci-Glucksmann, 104 pp. ISBN 2-901298-39-7.
Tom Carr, Orbis (2000) Generalitat de Catalunya, Departament de Cultura y Actar, Barcelona Spain. Texts by Joan-Francesc Ainaud, Sylvie Boulanger, Vicenç Altaió. 160 pp. ISBN 84-95273-41-1.
External links
Galleries