Tom Burr

American, born 1963

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Tom Burr is a multi-media artist well known for his installations, minimalist-inspired sculpture, and stylized "bulletin boards." All his work, including several photographic projects, deals to some extent with the liminal nature of public and private space. This tension is readily apparent in "Unearthing the Public Restrooms." Originally published in "Documents" magazine along with partially appropriated texts about public restrooms written by park rangers, the photographs document a type of languishing public architecture that is filtered through Burr's own personal history as a gay man who came of age in New York; the buildings serve also as potential sites of encounter, thus blurring the lines between social and intimate, public and private. [Pinson]