About
I am a conceptual artist whose work for the past 30 years has focused on the interplay between current social and political issues in American culture and the criminal justice system. From the start, my art has explored issues of injustice, beginning with a focus on gender norms and stereotypes. In 1995, I began to consider the subject of the death penalty and have been immersed in the topic of our criminal justice system ever since. I began working with ordinary objects, such as dinner plates and restaurant menus, to explore the history and controversary of the ritual and custom of offering a last meal of choice to someone about to be executed. A constant throughout the years, has been the incorporation of text into my art, empowering appropriated words with another layer of meaning and messaging. My work calls into question the dissemination of public information, such as state prison records and trial transcripts, and our voyeuristic nature. My work on the death penalty can make people uncomfortable, leading them to consider their own feelings about this act and to consider something they would simply prefer not to think about. My current work on wrongful conviction and the brutality of the death penalty, pushes people out of their comfort zones, bringing viewers’ attention to an unpleasant topic, the sanctity and fragility of life and one’s own mortality. It is my hope that my art promotes conversation, encourages questioning, and brings awareness to wrongful conviction, the death penalty, incarceration, and the criminal justice system overall.
I received a BFA from the Tyler School of Art, Temple University, an MFA from the School of the Art Institute of Chicago, and a fellowship from the Whitney Museum’s Whitney Independent Study Program. I am a recipient of The New York Foundation for the Arts Artists’ Fellowship, as well as an ARTISTS SPACE, NY Individual Artist Grant. My work has been published, exhibited and is in collections throughout North America and Europe.
Toby Lee Greenberg
