Tom Friedman (b. 1965) is best known for an enigmatic body of work that is playful and conceptual in equal measure. His highly detailed, meticulously rendered sculptures often have an autobiographical component, re-creating fleeting moments from the artist’s own life while simultaneously disrupting conventions of perception, logic, and possibility. Friedman seeks to estrange lived reality and its physical residue, frequently through unexpected applications of everyday materials such as Styrofoam, aluminum foil, wire, clay, body hair, and lint. As such, his deadpan artworks are deceptive: their handmade, narrative intricacy belies a seemingly mass-produced or prefabricated appearance, complicating the boundaries between illusion and reality. In an untitled sculpture from 2005, Friedman distills the horrific 9/11 terrorist attacks to a single highly abstracted moment: an airplane making contact with the side of a gray tower. The elegant simplicity of form inspires contemplation of that particular instant as the beginning of a new era marked by the complete transformation of social and geopolitical orders.