Steve Tobin (born 1957, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania)[1] is an American sculptor. Newsweek heralded Tobin's artistic mission "to make people look at natural objects in new ways".[2]
Much of his work draws inspiration from nature, combining a range of materials, found objects and techniques, including reappropriating industrial products.[5] Tobin is most known for the Trinity Root (2005), placed at St. Paul's Chapel in Lower Manhattan, New York City.[6]
His oeuvre ranges from small scale to monumental sculptures that “may be situated in a variety of environments, both indoors and out. Harkening back to late modernist abstraction, they bring the organic into the monumental, but instead of being a self-referential sculptural object, they are intended to be environments in themselves interacting with the surrounding spaces”.[7] Curator David Houston wrote that “Tobin’s work is anchored by two distinct themes. The first obvious and most dominant one is nature. His Steel Roots, Bronze Roots, Termite Hills, and the New Nature Series all reinterpret natural forms through deeply poetic visual languages that reach beyond the realm of appearance” (Houston 2009, p. 13). “The use of found objects, Tobin’s second major concern, is easily identifiable in his “shelter” pieces: matzoh bread, individually bronzed; Korean War–era tank windows; glass magic lantern slides. (Less known is that the ethereal Waterglass installations are also composed of found objects, thousands of pieces of glass capillary tubing resourced from a landfill)” (Houston 2019: p. 14).[7] His works “blend art and science, although presented formally in the language of sculpture, they are more deeply rooted in philosophy and theoretical science than in art or art history” (Warmus 2001: p. 31).[5]
Influences
Tobin revels in the life of objects and inspired by artists such as Alexander Calder and Henry Moore, whom he admires for the attitude that “a work can have in it a pent-up energy, an intense life of its own, independent of the object it may represent”.[5] Tobin's experimental approach to artistic processes is influenced by diverse international traditions and classic artistic traditions such as Venetian glass art, ceramic sculpture, casting in bronze and steel, East Asian art, and ground-breaking upcycling of found industrial objects.[7] His approach evolved during years of teaching and exhibiting internationally, including in the USA, Italy, Finland, Belgium, Korea, Japan, and China,[8][5] and adopting art philosophies such as wabi-sabi. His work has been related to monumental art and large works such as Louis Bourgeois' spider although “less emotional”.[9] Donald Kuspit called Tobin’s use of found materials “assisted readymades” related to Marcel Duchamp’s readymades.[10]
Biography
Tobin grew up near Philadelphia and earned a B.S. degree from Tulane University. He was exploring the natural world through art and science since youth and simultaneously studied glass and ceramics at Tulane; this “fascination with the scientific world, particularly as it related to his feeling for nature, became the foundation upon which he ultimately built his art career” (Warmus, 2001: p. 31).[5]
In the 1980s Tobin taught and was resident artist at Tokyo Glass Art Studio, where he learned Japanese and was profoundly impacted by Japanese culture and arts, particularly calligraphy and the ceramic vessels of the tea ceremony (Hoban: p 158).[8] He first became known for a series of tall (five to fifteen feet) blown-glass Cocoons started in 1984 at Creative Glass Center of America (WheatonArts) in Wheaton, New Jersey, which were shown widely. The Cocoons led to being invited to set up a studio to work in glass alongside masters in Murano, Venice.
During the 1990s, he transitioned from glass to metal. Some of the highlights of Tobin’s glass installations are the Cocoons hung in a chapel (now arts center) in Antwerp, Belgium 1990, and in 1993, at Retretti in Punkaharju, Finland, an art museum in a series of caves. He filled the caves with "totemic" glass Doors sculptures, and created a 100 feet (30 meters) long river from strands of glass capillary tubes called Retretti River. After the exhibition, he ceased working with glass.[4] As Hoban notes: “...the Cocoons became a turning point: Tobin realized that his real interest was not in craft, which he had clearly mastered, but in ideas” (2009: p 159).[8] He turned to metal as his next medium, building a bronze foundry in 1994 that enabled him to cast his several-part Earth Bronze series.[8]
In the late 1990s, he had numerous shows, including at the American Museum of Natural History, the Fuller Craft Museum in Massachusetts, and OK Harris in New York City, featuring earlier work and a series of bronze castings of Ghanaian termite hills. The molds, some as tall as 15 feet, were accomplished in collaboration with an entire Ghanaian village and transported to the artist’s studio in Pennsylvania, where they were cast in bronze. “The casts reproduce every nook and cranny of the original surfaces of the termite hills. Tobin calls the mounds a form of natural architecture--insects make the blueprints, and the resulting structures serve as shelters just as human-made buildings do”.[2]
In the 2000s Tobin’s cast bronze and steel sculptures were shown widely and he became affiliated with Ivan Karp (an influential art dealer at OK Harris) until Karp’s death in 2012. In 2001, Warmus wrote that “Tobin’s most significant body of work is the Earth Bronze Trilogy, consisting of the Forest Floor pieces, Termite Hills, and the exposed Roots. Like a set of three connected novels, each explores a different aspect of the ground under our feet.” [5] His casting approach was termed "alchemy" by Hoban: “Tobin isn’t simply emulating or copying nature: through the alchemy of his sophisticated casting process, which uses high temperatures and a specially fortified ceramic mold, he has actually turned the patch of earth into bronze […] in the extraordinary Forest Floor pieces” (2009: p. 159).[8]
In 2002, the Page Museum in Los Angeles gave an exhibition of his work titled "Tobin's Naked Earth: Nature as Sculpture", beside the La Brea Tar Pits.[11] The show included castings of termite hills, tree roots, and a large sculpture fashioned mainly from cow bones.[12]
In 2005, Tobin installed what is perhaps his best known work, Trinity Root, originally placed at St. Paul's Chapel in Lower Manhattan, New York City. During the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, the chapel had been partly shielded from damage by a 70-year-old sycamore tree. He created a bronze sculpture of the tree's stump and roots, which were shown in front of the church on the corner of Wall Street and Broadway. Tobin was already working with roots "The function for me of roots is to show the power of the unseen," he said. "And on 9/11 we found out about the power of all of our unseen connections, the things that nurture us that are hidden below the surface."[6]
The 20 feet high Trinity Root bronze sculpture by Steve Tobin commemorates the original sycamore tree that protected the St. Paul's Chapel during the 9/11 attacks in New York City.
The 9/11 Memorial & Museum has a Trinity Root large-scale model on permanent display.[13] The Trinity Root sculpture was highlighted by Chief Curator Ramirez as “striking not only for its ambitious scale and engineering virtuosity but also because of the tree’s presentation as something other than terrestrial branches, foliage, and woody surfaces. Instead, Tobin monumentalized the [...] once-concealed, skeletal roots. The choice provokes questions that seem to transcend the tree’s predicament, inviting reflection on the source of civilization’s endurance and weaknesses; of humankind’s capacity for cooperation and goodwill as well as for inflicting pain and injustices on one another.”[14]
During the 2000s Tobin also developed the Exploded Earth series made by exploding small charges in blocks of clay and then firing the results,[15] and showed conceptual paintings made with found materials at OK Harris.[16]
In 2016, Tobin was the featured artist in Shanghai, China for the Sixth Annual Jing’An International Sculpture Project (JISP) Expo. His studio shipped 48 bronze and steel sculptures for the installation, including several from his monumental Steelroots Series. Tobin's sculptures were showcased and sited at several places around the city of Shanghai, including in front of the Shanghai Natural History Museum and in Jing’An Sculpture Park, where they are still installed.[18]
Tobin’s artistic practice has activist aspects in terms of addressing natural phenomena as “powerful”,[5] involving collaboration with local people, getting inspiration from traditional art techniques, and striving for energy neutrality. His studio runs on solar energy and he has continually integrated salvaged materials as sculptural elements, including military tank windows, antique glass magic lantern educational slides, glass tubes, and steel pipes from Bethlehem Steel.
Tobin has initiated community-oriented art activities that celebrate nature as restorative for people. For instance, he was inspired to make Trinity Root to commemorate 9/11 after learning of the sycamore tree and seeing its upturned roots, but proceeded only after speaking with survivors and families about his plans.[6] In 2009, he made termite hill molds in collaboration with the villagers of Nsawam in Ghana.[4] The resulting cast bronze Termite Hill sculptures, when shown in Manhattan, were intended to evoke “a fresh sense of wonder, particularly given their juxtaposition with one of the best-known skylines in the world and their multicultural connotation.”[5] In 2024, his exhibition "Earth to Sky" on Maui supported the charitable organization Imua Family Services with proceeds directly contributing to improve resources to children with challenges. Imua Discovery Garden and local educators and families collaborated with Tobin on promoting the show with the theme of celebrating Art, Nature, and Families on Maui in a joint effort to attract tourism after the Maui fires.
Golisano Children’s Museum of Naples, Naples, Florida
Gratz College, Elkins Park, Pennsylvania
Grounds for Sculpture, Hamilton, New Jersey
James A. Michener Museum of Art, Doylestown, Pennsylvania
Jing’An International Sculpture Project, Shanghai, China
Karl Stirner Arts Trail, Easton, Pennsylvania
King Faisal’s Palace, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia
Lehigh University Museum of Art, Lehigh, Pennsylvania
Lowe Art Museum, Miami, Florida
Moravian College, Bethlehem, Pennsylvania
Musée des Arts Décoratifs, Lausanne, Switzerland
Museum of American Glass, Millville, New Jersey
Museum of Art and Design (MAD), New York, New York
New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, Louisiana
Palmer Museum of Art at Penn State University, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philadelphia Museum of Art, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania
Philip and Muriel Berman Museum of Art, Ursinus College, Collegeville, Pennsylvania
Retretti Art Centre, Punkajarju, Finland
Stephane Janssen Collection, Phoenix, Arizona, Santa Fe, New Mexico
Toledo Museum of Art, Toledo, Ohio
White House Permanent Art Collection, Washington, D.C
Related Research Articles
Dale Chihuly is an American glass artist and entrepreneur. He is well known in the field of blown glass, "moving it into the realm of large-scale sculpture".
Sculpture is the branch of the visual arts that operates in three dimensions. Sculpture is the three-dimensional art work which is physically presented in the dimensions of height, width and depth. It is one of the plastic arts. Durable sculptural processes originally used carving and modelling, in stone, metal, ceramics, wood and other materials but, since Modernism, there has been almost complete freedom of materials and process. A wide variety of materials may be worked by removal such as carving, assembled by welding or modelling, or moulded or cast.
George Grey Barnard, often written George Gray Barnard, was an American sculptor who trained in Paris. He is especially noted for his heroic sized Struggle of the Two Natures in Man at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, his twin sculpture groups at the Pennsylvania State Capitol, and his Lincoln statue in Cincinnati, Ohio. His major works are largely symbolical in character. His personal collection of medieval architectural fragments became a core part of The Cloisters in New York City.
Studio glass is the modern use of glass as an artistic medium to produce sculptures or three-dimensional artworks in the fine arts. The glass objects created are intended to make a sculptural or decorative statement, and typically serve no useful function. Though usage varies, the term is properly restricted to glass made as art in small workshops, typically with the personal involvement of the artist who designed the piece. This is in contrast to art glass, made by craftsmen in factories, and glass art, covering the whole range of glass with artistic interest made throughout history. Both art glass and studio glass originate in the 19th century, and the terms compare with studio pottery and art pottery, but in glass the term "studio glass" is mostly used for work made in the period beginning in the 1960s with a major revival in interest in artistic glassmaking.
Favrile glass is a type of iridescent art glass developed by Louis Comfort Tiffany. He patented this process in 1894 and first produced the glass for manufacture in 1896 in Queens, New York. It differs from most iridescent glasses because the color is ingrained in the glass itself, as well as having distinctive coloring. Tiffany won a grand prize at the 1900 Paris Exposition for his Favrile glass.
Giuseppe Penone is an Italian artist and sculptor, known for his large-scale sculptures of trees. He is interested in the link between man and the natural world. His early work is often associated with the Arte povera movement. In 2014, Penone was awarded the prestigious Praemium Imperiale award. He currently lives and works in Turin, Italy.
Jedd Garet is an American sculptor, painter and printmaker, who was born in 1955. He was raised in California, studied at the Rhode Island School of Design, and received a BFA from the School of Visual Arts in New York City.
Albert Paley is an American modernist metal sculptor. Initially starting out as a jeweler, Paley has become one of the most distinguished and influential metalsmiths in the world. Within each of his works, three foundational elements stay true: the natural environment, the built environment, and the human presence. Paley is the first metal sculptor to have received the Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Institute of Architects. He lives and works in Rochester, New York with his wife, Frances.
Michael M. Glancy was an American glass and sculpture artist and arts educator.
Stanislav Libenský and Jaroslava Brychtová were Czech contemporary artists. Their works are included in many major modern art collections, such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art and the Victoria & Albert Museum.
Sterling Ruby is an American artist who works in a large variety of media including ceramics, painting, drawing, collage, sculpture, video, and textiles. Often, his work is presented in large and densely packed installations. The artist has cited a diverse range of sources and influences including aberrant psychologies, urban gangs and graffiti, hip-hop culture, craft, punk, masculinity, violence, public art, prisons, globalization, American domination and decline, waste and consumption. In opposition to the minimalist artistic tradition and influenced by the ubiquity of urban graffiti, the artist's works often appear scratched, defaced, camouflaged, dirty, or splattered. Proclaimed as one of the most interesting artists to emerge this century by New York Times art critic Roberta Smith, Ruby's work examines the psychological space where individual expression confronts social constraint. Sterling Ruby currently lives and works in Los Angeles. His studio is located in Vernon, south of downtown Los Angeles.
Ugo Rondinone is a Swiss-born contemporary artist.
Zhao, Suikang (赵穗康) is a Chinese-American artist who works on different media and genres including painting, sculpture, site-specific installation, interdisciplinary art and monumental public art projects.
Dan Owen Dailey is an American artist and educator, known for his sculpture. With the support of a team of artists and crafts people, he creates sculptures and functional objects in glass and metal. He has taught at many glass programs and is professor emeritus at the Massachusetts College of Art, where he founded the glass program.
Alyson Shotz is an American sculptor based in Brooklyn, New York. She is known for experiential, large-scale abstract sculptures and installations inspired by nature and scientific concepts, which manipulate light, shadow, space and gravity in order to investigate and complicate perception. Writers suggest her work challenges tenets of monumental, minimalist sculpture—traditionally welded, solid, heavy and static—through its accumulation of common materials in constructions that are often flexible, translucent, reflective, seemingly weightless, and responsive to changing conditions and basic forces. Sculpture critic Lilly Wei wrote, "In Shotz’s realizations, the definition of sculpture becomes increasingly expansive—each project, often in series, testing another proposition, another possibility, another permutation, while ignoring conventional boundaries."
The Great God Pan is a bronze sculpture by American sculptor George Grey Barnard. Since 1907, it has been a fixture of the Columbia University campus in Manhattan, New York City.
Valérie Goutard, was a French sculptor who used VAL as her artist's name.
William Warmus is a curator, art critic, and author focusing on transparent media.
Tim Tate is an American artist and the co-founder of the Washington Glass School in the Greater Washington, DC capital area. The school was founded in 2001 and is now the second largest warm glass school in the United States. Tate was diagnosed as HIV positive in 1989 and was told that he had a year left to live. As a result, Tate decided to begin working with glass in order to leave a legacy behind. Over a decade ago, Tate began incorporating video and embedded electronics into his glass sculptures, thus becoming one of the first artists to migrate and integrate the relatively new form of video art into sculptural works. In 2019 he was selected to represent the United States at the sixth edition of the GLASSTRESS exhibition at the Venice Biennale.
Christina Bothwell is an American contemporary fine arts glass maker. She is known for glass, ceramic, and mixed media sculptures that portray the processes of birth, death, and renewal. Many of her pieces involve human-animal hybrids. Reviewing her 1997 solo exhibition Living with Ghosts at the Radix Gallery, New York, critic Mark Zimmerman said of her "Bothwell’s work turns symbols into spirits of creation."
↑ Leffingwell, Ed (2006) [June/July]. "Steve Tobin at OK Harris". Art in America.
↑ Schultz, Eric (2012). "Steve Tobin, sculptor". State of the Arts New Jersey (documentary shorts cornerstone program of NJ PBS on YouTube). njpbs.org.
This page is based on this Wikipedia article Text is available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 license; additional terms may apply. Images, videos and audio are available under their respective licenses.
