Tom Friedman

Circle Dance, 2010

• Stainless steel 6' x 22', Anonymous gift
• Installed on The Walk, Waterman Street, across from the Building for Environmental Research and Teaching

Tom Friedman’s Circle Dance is a joyful, energetic sculpture inspired by Henri Matisse’s La Danse (1910). The generous donor, an alum committed to fostering the development of arts at Brown, hopes that Circle Dance will set an example for others to contribute to the cultural landscape of the University. A piece that activates the site and space beyond, Circle Dance is already becoming a site of playful engagement characteristic of Brown and its other public sculptures. Within a week of its installation, Circle Dance garnered responses from passers by stopping to photograph it and students crawling on and between the figures.

Friedman is a conceptual sculptor interested in material and process. For Circle Dance, a stainless steel cast, he first made a maquette out of aluminum roasting pans, the impressions of which are readily viewed in the final work. Friedman often explores and engages with everyday objects as he creates his sculptures. Though imagination and wit, his work is often humorous and double-coded, providing a level of accessibility and enjoyment to many, while also offering deeper commentary on art and life.