TONY TASSET

(AMERICAN, BORN 1960)

Deer, 2015
fiberglass, steel, paint
12 x 20 x 8 feet
Laumeier Sculpture Park Collection

Tony Tasset is one of the most inventive sculptors working in the United States today. Since the mid-1990s, he has created increasingly ambitious sculptures. Deer, 2015 is composed as a nervous and pensive monumental fawn ready to make her move. The surreal juxtaposition
of the supersized deer emerging from the woodland dramatizes the relationship of what it means to be human, the identity of sculpture and their respective places in nature. Tasset explains Deer “as a work that represents the highest conceptual ambitions with a delightful populist twist.” 

Deer’s size suggests how nature is out of balance in today’s urban and suburban spaces, and how humans have impacted the other species around us. In many ways, Tasset’s Deer is emblematic of the Park itself. Our deer population is a silent and near invisible audience, using our 105 acres as home and playground. This cunning work explores how we collectively dwell in the landscape but also celebrates the unique environment created when art frames nature.

Sculpture Interaction Guideline: Walk, But Do Not Climb

DONORS TO TONY TASSET'S DEER

Dorte Bjerregaard and Jim Probstein
Jiamin and Michael Dierberg
Alison and John Ferring
Nancy and Ken Kranzberg
Ramsey Maune
Sue McCollum
Patricia and David Schlafly
Laura and Paul Shaughnessy

ARTIST BIOGRAPHY

Tony Tasset was born in Cincinnati, Ohio, in 1960. He received his B.F.A. at the Art Academy of Cincinnati in 1983 and his M.F.A. at The School of the Art Institute of Chicago in 1985. Tasset works with video, photography, bronze, wax, fiberglass, film and even taxidermy. His work employs wisdom and wit and continuously contends with the trappings of Modernism, Postmodern theory, pop culture and the universal human emotions associated with love, loss, frailty and beauty. Tasset's work is in the permanent collections of prestigious museums including the Art Institute of Chicago and the Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago; the Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles; and the Museum Für Moderne Kunst, Frankfurt, among others. He has been featured in numerous solo and group exhibitions around the world, including Canada, Ecuador, Germany, Italy and the United Kingdom. Laumeier presented a solo Tasset exhibition in 2007 entitled Tony Tasset: All Things Must Pass.