Tom Sachs

Tom Sachs is a sculptor best known for his work inspired by icons of Modernism in both art and design. Using modest studio materials, Sachs’ work produces parallel universes oftentimes incorporating semi-functional sculptures that are sometimes deployed by the artist and his studio assistants for interactive projects.

Often Sachs decides to keep exposed the materials, seams, joints, and screws as well as foamcore and plywood—that are used when combining the elements that produce his work. By choosing to not erase, sand away, or render invisible these necessary elements, Sachs’ work prompts the viewer to consider what a finished (or unfinished) work might look and feel like. On a more philosophical level, this means that nothing Sachs makes is ever finished. Like any good engineering project, everything can always be stripped down, stripped out, redesigned and improved; Sachs works retain this latent potential.

Tom Sachs’ iconic Shop Chair has been produced exclusively for Salon 94Design. Experienced in groups or singly, Sachs’ Shop Chairs have always emblematically represented the artist’s playful—yet functional approach to art as a useable and practical object.

Tom Sachs (American, b.1966) is a sculptor born in New York, NY After attending the Architectural Association in London in 1987, Sachs earned a BA from Bennington College in Vermont in 1989. He currently lives and works in New York, NY. A retrospective of Sachs’ boombox sculptures was presented at The Contemporary Austin (2015) and a version of it traveled to The Brooklyn Museum (2016). The Noguchi Museum hosted a solo exhibition of Sachs’ work in 2016 -- that exhibition marked the first occasion that any artist beyond Isamu Noguchi was highlighted in the space. It then traveled to Yerba Buena Center for the Arts as Tom Sachs: Space Program 3.0: Europa (2016-17), ultimately going to Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas (2017-18) and then Tokyo Opera City Gallery (2019). Tom Sachs: Timeline, a retrospective exhibition is currently on view at Schauwerk Sindelfingen in Germany until April 2020. Sachs’ work is found in important collections worldwide including the Albright-Knox Art Gallery, Buffalo, New York; Crystal Bridges, Bentonville, Arkansas; The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, New York; the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, San Francisco, California; the Solomon R. Guggenheim Museum, New York, New York; the Whitney Museum of American Art, New York, New York; Centre Georges Pompidou, Paris; and Fondazione Prada, Milan.