Brian Tolle

Born 1964, Queens, NY, USA.
Lives in Manhattan, NY, works in Brooklyn, NY.

How do we connect the past and the present? Through memory, and through history. Brian Tolle is fascinated by what we choose to remember, and how we choose to remember it; by the memorials we make, by the value we ascribe to certain objects frm the past. He uses history to throw light on the present, combining technology with craft to create public installations that prompt us to reflect more deeply than we usually do on history, on what we remember and what we forget. Tolle also likes to create slightly unnerving experiences and perceptual surprises for viewers of his work; expect the unexpected if you happen to be gazing into the dark waters of Liverpool’s Albert Dock.

Selected solo exhibitions

2006    Die or Join, ICA, Philadelphia, PA, USA
2005    For the Gentle Wind Doth Move Silently Invisibly, Cleveland Public Art, Mall B, Cleveland, OH, USA
2000    Llano del Rio, Shoshana Wayne Gallery, CA, USA
1998    Schmidt Contemporary Art, St. Louis, MO, USA
1996    Overmounted Interior, Basilico Fine Arts, New York, NY, USA

Selected group exhibitions

2005    Gadget, Cincinnati Arts Center, Cincinnati, OH, USA
Down the Garden Path: The Artist’s Garden After Modernism, Queens Museum of Art, Queens, NY, USA

  2004    The Voting Booth Project, Parsons School of Design, New York, NY, USA
Lustwarande 04: Disorientation By Beauty, De Oude Warande, Tilburg, Netherlands
Extinct Extant: Art in the Environment II, part of The Big Nothing, The Schuylkill Center, Philadelphia, PA, USA

2003    Absence into Presence: The Art, Architecture and Design of Remembrance, Aronson Galleries, Parsons School of Design, New York, NY, USA
Metrospective, New York City Hall Park, New York, NY, USA
Pursuit of Happiness, Kunsthalle Bern, Bern, Switzerland
    Eire | Land, McMullen Museum of Art, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA, USA

2002    I Bienal Ceará América, De ponta-cabeça, Bienal de Arte Contemporânea das
Americas, Fortaleza-Ceará, Brazil
The Presidential Suite, Nassau County Museum of Art, Roslyn Harbor, NY, USA
Whitney Biennial, Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, NY, USA
    Never Never Land, Rutgers-Camden Center for the Arts, Camden, NJ, USA
Pictures, Patents, Monkeys, and More… On Collecting, Institute of Contemporary Art, Philadelphia, PA, USA

Selected commissions

2002     Irish Hunger Memorial, Battery Park City, New York, USA


Further Reading


 Litt, Steven “Making Waves: Wind patterns shape urns on the Mall,” The Plain Dealer, October 1, Arts and Life front page, pp. E1,E4     (illus.) 2004.

Schama, Simon.  "Pangs A Patch of Earth".  The New Yorker.  August 19-26, 2002:  pp.58, 60.

Baird, Daniel, “The 2002 Whitney Biennial The Whitney Museum of Art,” The Brooklyn Rail, Early Summer, 2002: pp. 15-16.

Smith, Roberta.  "A Memorial Remembers The Hungry".  The New York Times.  July 16, 2002: pp. E1, E3.

Kaizen, William R., “Brian Tolle,” BOMB, summer, 2001: pp.56-63.