Tom Sanford is a Busy Man…Here’s Why

Tom Sanford's gilded paintings of New York artists, installed on East 4th Street between Bowery and Second Avenue.Â

We at Bad at Sports know that Tom Sanford is really a superhero in disguise, and lately he’s even been scaling tall buildings! Well okay, so maybe the buildings aren’t all that tall but still. At the moment, Tom has an amazing series of paintings titled “The Saints of the Lower East Side” that portray NY artists Martin Wong, Joey Ramone, Miguel Piñero, Ellen Stewart, Charlie Parker, Arthur Fellig (WeeGee) and Allen Ginsberg against backgrounds of gilded gold. The series is installed on scaffolding on East 4th Street between Bowery and Second Avenue.

The press coverage on Tom’s project has been amazing — you can read all the details in articles posted at Gothamist,  TalkArtWorld.com, NYcurbed, and TheLowDownNY.

Tom’s exhibition here is part of series of temporary art installations in unusual locations in the Lower East Side, made possible through FABnyc’s ArtUp program, which is produced in collaboration with MaNY Project and directed by Keith Schweitzer. So if you’re in NYC or planning to visit — go see ’em! They’ll be on view all summer, until September 5th or so. To see more pics of the installation and the works online, visit Tom’s website. Tom is looking for a public or semi-public “final resting place” on the Lower East Side  for these paintings, so if you have any ideas about that, let Tom know by contacting him through his website.

You be well.

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Claudine Isé

Claudine Isé has worked in the field of contemporary art as a writer and curator for the past decade, and currently serves as the Editor of the Art21 Blog. Claudine regularly writes for Artforum.com and Chicago magazine, and has also worked as an art critic for the Los Angeles Times. Before moving to Chicago in 2008, she worked at the Wexner Center in Columbus, OH as associate curator of exhibitions, and at the Hammer Museum in Los Angeles as assistant curator of contemporary art, where she curated a number of Hammer Projects. She has Ph.D. in Film, Literature and Culture from the University of Southern California.

Latest posts by Claudine Isé (see all)

• Michelle Grabner, Anthony Elms, Stuart Comer Named Curators of 2014 Whitney Biennial - November 29, 2012
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• Tom Sanford is a Busy Man…Here’s Why - June 12, 2012