ROB PRUITT

WEDNESDAY, OCTOBER 1

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6:30pm at The New School
John Tishman Auditorium / 66 West 12th Street

Last year artist Rob Pruitt became fascinated by his iPhone and its ability to document aspects of everyday life from the most mundane to the most revealing. Following in the footsteps of Andy Warhol, who intently chronicled his world through tape recordings and filled up numerous time capsules with his items from his everyday life, Pruitt has documented a-day-in-the-life-of-the-artist everyday of the year since purchasing the phone, which he refers to as "an extra brain in my pocket" as well as a "sketchbook for someone who doesn't draw."

Pruit sees art all around him — as evidenced by 101 Art Ideas You Can Do at Home (1999), a set of instructions for transforming everything into art and demonstrating both his conceptual and pop roots. In the early 1990s, Pruitt collaborated with artist Jack Early before striking out on his own to create works that have ranged from paintings and scuptures to photographs and events. At least year's Frieze Art Fair in London, he turned the booth run by Gavin Brown's enterprise into a flea market, selling items consigned by artists and friends including records, clothes, brownies, books and artwork.

Rob Pruitt was born in 1964 in Washington DC and lives and works in New York. His work has been included in solo and group exhibitions in the United States and abroad since the early 1990s. His latest project, "iPhotos," is on view at Gavin Brown's enterprise through October 11.

Tom Friedman
Untitled (Trash Can), 2003
Courtesy of Gagosian Gallery, New York

TOM FRIEDMAN

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 5

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6:30pm at The New School
John Tishman Auditorium / 66 West 12th Street

Sculptor Tom Friedman makes the ordinary, extraordinary. He often does this by playing with certain characteristics of a familiar object — and turning something common and insignificant into something notable and arresting. Part philosopher, part craftsman with a sense of humor, Friedman also pays acute attention to how both everyday items and works of art are perceived. For viewers looking at Friedman's work one of the first questions that often springs to mind is "How did he do that?" His well-known works include: a self-portrait of the artist carved out of an aspirin, a single piece of gum stretched from the ceiling to the floor, or a pill capsule filled with miniscule balls of Play-doh. Untitled (2000) is a portrait of the artist violently torn apart. This vulgar depiction, made entirely of construction paper, is entrancing and something we can't take our eyes off of; the disbelief of the materials echoes the surprising subject matter. Friedman likes to keep interpretations of his works open-ended, leaving us to ponder the nature of his materials and the methods he uses to transform them into witty, whimsical works of art.

Born in St. Louis, Missouri in 1965, Tom Friedman currently lives and works in Leverett, Massachusetts. He received his BFA in Graphic Illustration from Washington University and earned an MFA in sculpture from the University of Illinois at Chicago. His work has been presented in numerous exhibitions in the United States and abroad, among the most recent are shows at the Museum of Modern Art, Rhode Island School of Design (2008); Mildred Lane Kemper Art Museum, St. Louis (2006); South London Gallery, London (2004); and Fondazione Prada, Milan (2002).

CATHERINE SULLIVAN

WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 19

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6:30pm at The New School
John Tishman Auditorium / 66 West 12th Street

Catherine Sullivan's installations combine theater, dance, film, music and visual art; through these disciplines she scrutinzes collective audiences such as nostalgia, the sensations of history, and cultural acquiescence. The performers in her pieces often explore written texts, stylistic economies, gestural regimes, reenactments of history and conceptual orthodoxies. Her work is usually shot or performed within locations that are richly layered with social functions, and the elements of character, action and setting play off one another to produce an anxious and unresolved political sensibility. The topics touched upon in Sullivan's 2007 piece, Triangle of Need, are numerous and varied, including Neanderthal orphans, Nigerian email scams and even time travel. To create this piece, the artist collaborated with noted music, dance and film professionals, to create an ambitious and thought-provoking work that makes underlying comments on a broader set of issues. However, her true medium is the ensemble itself, and her works most often involve multiple collaborators. With The Chittendens (2005), for example, a six-channel sound and video piece produced in collaboration with composer Sean Griffin, Sullivan assigned sixteen actors different "attitudes" — each characterized by appointed movements and emotions that were performed according to a strict pattern. The name of the piece itself was derived from an insurance agency called "Chittenden Group" whose logo — a lighthouse — is a meaningful metaphor for self-possession.

Catherine Sullivan lives and works in Chicago. Born in Los Angeles in 1968, she attended California Institue of Arts, Valencia (BFA, 1992) and Art Center College of Design, Pasadena (MFA, 1997). She has had solo exhibitions at Walker Art Center, Minneapolis (2007); Smart Museum of Art, Chicago (2007-08); Tate Modern, London (2005); and Secession, Vienna (2004); among others. Her work has also been included in group shows at the Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston (2007-08); Prague Biennial (2005); and the Whitney Biennial (2004).