2004.33.a-c, Tom Friedman, Untitled (big/small figure), 20014, styrofoam and paint

Looking at these two figures may create a double sense of feeling one's own self either very small or very large. Like Gulliver in Jonathan Swift's Gulliver's Travels, one at first feels huge, looking down among the Lilliputians, and then, looking upward, tiny among the giant Brobdignagians. Other works by Tom Friedman that he calls self-portraits are single images similar to the smaller one included here. Is this, then, the monster and his creator? The artist and his work? The human and the inhuman? Friedman invites us to play, saying, "I think that there's this misconception that playful thinking is not serious and it's not important."

Charlie Wylie, DMA unpublished material, 2004.

Until 2004: Stephen Friedman Gallery, London [1]

From 2004: Dallas Museum of Art, purchased from above

[1] See correspondence in Collections Records Object File 2004.33.a-c

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