Lehmann Maupin is pleased to announce Tom Friedman: In Focus, an exhibition of new and recent work by American sculptor Tom Friedman. Featuring both sculpture and work on paper, this presentation explores the role of scale in Friedman’s practice, which he has utilized as a tool throughout his career to disrupt viewers’ expectations and provoke deeper inquiry. Tom Friedman: In Focus also recognizes Lehmann Maupin’s recently expanded representation of the artist, which now includes the Americas. In fall 2025, Friedman will have a major solo exhibition spanning the gallery’s New York location. 

Friedman is best known for his alchemic sculptural practice that transforms ordinary materials, such as styrofoam, oven roasting pans, plaster, and household items into meticulously constructed art objects. Over the course of his decades-long career, Friedman has pushed the limits of scale to extremes; the artist has both carved his self-portrait into a single aspirin and built gigantic human figures out of tinfoil and aluminum pans, casting them in stainless steel to immortalize the ephemeral material while retaining its signature aesthetic qualities. While Friedman’s work is marked by an astounding level of craftsmanship, his subjects are also highly conceptual. The artist is fond of visual puns and riddles, and many of Friedman’s sculptures assume their own circular logic—for example, the minute precision and prolonged focus required to carve one’s face into a 3mm painkiller is also likely to give one a headache.