Tony Tasset

Born in 1960 in Cincinnati, OH
Lives and works in Chicago, IL

Keep in Touch

Education

MFA, The School of the Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL, 1985
BFA, The Art Academy of Cincinnati, Cincinnati, OH, 1983
Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, 1983

About The Artist

For over three decades, Chicago-based artist Tony Tasset has created sophisticated yet campy rejoinders to banal Americana while also tweaking the clichés of well-worn contemporary art contexts. Early in his career, Tasset became known for his precisely crafted yet impractical, minimalist works of domestic furniture that comically walk the line between form and function. More recently, Tasset has explored the process of copying or presenting lowbrow American symbols, such as jack-o-lanterns or “paintings” made with over-the-counter products like Listerine, as contemporary art.

Tony Tasset’s Artists Monument was in the 2014 Whitney Biennial at the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York. Before that, he was awarded the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship in 2006 as well as the prestigious Louis Comfort Tiffany Award in 1989.

Tasset has had solo institutional exhibitions at the Rochester Arts Center in Rochester, MN; the Laumeier Sculpture Park in St. Louis, MO and the University Galleries at Illinois State University in Normal, IL.

His work has been included in recent notable group exhibitions at the Museum of Contemporary Art Chicago in Chicago, IL; the Kentucky Museum of Art and Craft in Louisville, KY; the Boca Museum of Art in Boca Raton, FL; MANA Contemporary in Jersey City, NJ; the ICA in Boston, MA, and the Walker Art Center in Minneapolis, MN.

Tasset’s work can also be found in many museum collections including the Carnegie Museum of Art in Pittsburgh, PA; The Art Institute of Chicago in Chicago, IL; and the Museum Fur Moderne Kunst in Frankfurt, Germany, among others. He is currently represented by Kavi Gupta of Chicago and Berlin.

Galleries

Kavi Gupta Gallery, Chicago

Select Permanent Collections

Smart Museum of Art, University of Chicago, IL
Laumeier Sculpture Park, St Louis, MO
Carnegie Museum of Art, Pittsburgh, PA
The Baltimore Museum of Art, Baltimore, MA
The Art Institute of Chicago, Chicago, IL
The Museum of Contemporary Art, Chicago, IL
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles, CA
The San Francisco Museum of Art, San Francisco, CA
Goldblatt’s Building, City of Chicago, Chicago, IL
Nathan J. Manilow Sculpture Park, University Park, IL
David L Lawrence Convention Center, Pittsburgh, PA
Museum Fur Modern Kunst, Frankfurt, Germany
Milwaukee Art Museum, Milwaukee, WI

Work

Exhibitions

  • Anything for a Laugh: Humor in Contemporary Art

    The works for this exhibition range from works that address serious concerns with humorous affect to others whose intent is more purely comedic. Together, they provide an intriguing snapshot of the manner in which comic strategies manifest themselves in contemporary art.

News