A survey or work leading up to and including the large internally counter-balanced works Tom Shannon make today. How art can draw on scientific knowledge to deepen its resonance in intellectual history and still look groovy. How subject matter grows and interconnects to create a style.

About the Speaker

Tom Shannon was born June 23, 1947. An early work, made at age 19, was included in the landmark exhibition The Machine as Seen at the End of the Mechanical Age at the Museum of Modern Art in 1969. Since that time his sculptures have been included in numerous international exhibitions in institutions such as the Centre Pompidou, the Stedelijk Museum, Moderna Museet, the Venice Biennale, the Sao Paulo Bienal, the Biennale de Lyon, the Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Art Tower Mito and the Whitney Museum.

Recent commissions include an installation at Chateau d’Oiron, Taejon Art Park designed by Renzo Piano, Sapporo Dome and a 3-D computer video projection for the National Galleries at the Grand Palais in Paris.

Shannon was granted patents for the first tactile telephone, a color television projector and a synchronous world clock featuring a FullerSadao map face, which is in the collection of the Smithsonian Institution.

Shannon was featured artist at the 2003 TED Conference where he presented Air Genie, a spherical helium airship whose entire surface is a LED video screen. He designed the TED Prize, the Buckminster Fuller prize and the Trophee Jules Verne installed at the Musee de la Marine in Paris. Recent outdoor work includes a hovering sculpture at the entrance of Kansai Electric in Osaka and a hovering work at Chateau La Coste.

Shannon attended the University of Wisconsin and the Art Institute of Chicago where he received a Master of Fine Art degree. He lives in Manhattan.