NEW YORK CITY
From 2004 to 2010 Tom Bogaert participated in the Elizabeth Foundation for the Arts Studio Program in Manhattan. He studied at NYU and participated in several group exhibitions in the city and beyond. Bogaert had a solo show in 2008 at ‘Jack the Pelican Presents’ gallery in Brooklyn and moved to Amman, Jordan soon thereafter.
PISO MOJADO
Piso Mojado (2009)
In the East River for the Dumbo Arts Festival in Brooklyn, NY.
Piso Mojado (2009)In Miami Beach, FL.
The ‘Piso Mojado’ series is a succession of performances in which Tom Bogaert mounts a yellow multi-lingual safety cone onto a mooring buoy. The buoy travels to varying bodies of water. As of yet, Bogaert installed Piso Mojados in Brooklyn, Staten Island, Belgium, Miami, Gaza, and Jordan.
The Piso Mojado piece functions as an ‘open’ work with no specific meaning imposed. This allows the interpretation of the work to change with it’s content, which is fluid and changes with time, context and audience.
For example, in Miami the buoy was interpreted as a comment on the ‘Wet Feet, Dry Feet Policy’: a Cuban citizen, who is caught on the waters between Cuba and the United States (i.e.’wet floor’), would summarily be sent home or to a third country. One who makes it to shore (‘dry floor’) gets a chance to remain in the US.
EMPIRE STATE-BUILDING
‘Empire state-building’ is built around a paper Tom Bogaert wrote for New York University in 2008, ‘From Empire state-building to Solid state-building: What types of lessons has the international community learned from past operations that can be applied to future state-building operations?’CANARY SPACE SHIP
Canary Space Ship (2007)
At the Deitch Projects / Creative Time Art Parade in NYC .
‘Canary Space Ship’ is a complex of pre-used birdcages, connected by wire, glue, tape and wool. Inside the complex are three live canaries. Each bird is tagged with an aluminum band featuring Tom Bogaert’s studio address. This precaution must be taken in case the Space Ship is captured by extraterrestrials.
TROJAN TART
Trojan Tart (2006)
Installation view Bronx River Art Center.
Trojan Tart (2006)Cellphone-based detonation device.
‘Trojan Tart’ is about an American artist who claims responsibility for an act of terrorism in a farewell video. Earlier, she had built a gigantic decorated cake at an abandoned riverside landfill in Queens, NY and filled it with explosives. Her plan fails, she is arrested and executed two months later. The cake is destroyed and her art studio becomes a popular place of pilgrimage.
DOUBLE PORTRAITS
Double Portraits (2005)
Performance.
Based on religious sticker stamps, which Tom Bogaert bought in the church shop of the ‘Monastery of the Magnificat of the Mother of God’ in Quebec, Bogaert created portraits of contemporary icons. Seated at a lemonade stand, the artist invited bystanders to witness the stamp transformations and gave the public the opportunity to buy the original stickers and new icons for 25 cents each.
JACK THE PELICAN PRESENTS
Jack the Pelican Presents (2002 - 2010)487 Driggs Avenue in Brooklyn, New York.
Besides his studio at the Elizabeth Foundation in Manhattan, Jack the Pelican Presents gallery in Brooklyn was Tom Bogaert's second home in New York. The artist had a solo show there in 2008 and eventually Tom Bogaert and the gallery owner Don Carroll became friends for life.