Tom Friedman: Up in the Air exhibition

Chewing gum, pencil shavings and dental floss might seem like things you’d normally throw away but for conceptual artist Tom Friedman these items are essential components of his quirky and surprising sculptures.

Up in the Air - one giant installation comprised of 1000 seemingly underrated objects suspended in mid-air - is a sculpture Friedman has been working on for the past year. The work is hung from the ceiling at Friedman’s solo exhibition of the same name at Magasin 3 in Stockholm, which features 25 of Friedman’s works from the late 1980s to the present.

With each piece he turns the ordinary into something extraordinary. Friedman encourages us to see things differently; as the curator Richard Julin said: ‘Friedman attempts to understand the world through his work, and every new artwork represents an act of discovery’. Sculptures like Green Demon and Monster Collage seem at once playful and affecting. His art addresses small transformations and sudden realisations of beauty as the viewer turns their attention to mundane objects in a way they’ve never been seen before.

This exhibition helps to highlight why Friedman has developed such an impressive and deserved following.