ROBERT CARY TANNEN: CIVIC ARTIST

 

BORN: Brooklyn, New York; 1937

 

EDUCATION AND CAREER MILESTONES:

 

1961 B.I.D. (Bachelor in Industrial Design), Environmental Design, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY

General Motors Scholarship for Undergraduate Study in Design

1963 M.F.A., Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY, 1963

1963 Graduate studies in philosophy, Columbia University, 1963

1963 Graduate studies in psychology, New York University, 1963

1960-63 Instructor in Design and Sculpture, Art School and School of Building Science, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY

1963-65 Arts, Architecture and Core Curriculum Instructor and Founding Faculty Member, Franconia College, Franconia, NH

1965-Present Artist, Urban Designer and Regional Planner

1966 Manager Lazy Eight Inc, R&D Group, MA

1976 Co-founder of the Contemporary Arts Center with Jeanne Nathan, New Orleans, LA

1988-92 Visiting professor in Urban Design, Tulane School of Architecture, New Orleans, LA

2003 Co Founder, Downtown Neighborhoods Improvement Association

2005- Present, consultant, RAND Corporation and CDMSmith engineering

 

CAREER SUMMARY, ACTIVITIES AND SPECIAL PROJECTS:

 

Robert Tannen is an artist, economic and urban development and design specialist, planner and community activist whose 60 year artistic, professional and community service career has resulted in more than $3 billion of public/private projects in the lower Mississippi Valley and the Gulf Coast.

 

He has produced major new innovative art works since his high school years when be began showing installation projects on Tenth Street in New York City when the abstract expressionist movement was just beginning to be challenged by a younger generation working with conceptual, performance and installation art. Fatherhood at a young age took him out of the New York art market, but did not end his original art creations. Whether constructions of beach debris, wrapped objects, animals suspended in plastic bags of formaldehyde, furniture covered in rags dipped in resin, large scale works out of tractor tires, concrete blocks, or sheet metal “archisculptures”, Tannen’s work has preceded related work by better known artists.

 

He forged plans for the Gulf Coast restoration after Camille; led environmental studies and an open land use and transportation regional planning process for the New Orleans metropolitan area; designed ramps for a new New Orleans bridge designed to save neighborhoods; managed creation of a city wide neighborhoods historic districts plan; chose the riverfront site for the 1984 Louisiana World Expo that led to a transformation of the New Orleans Riverfront; and stimulated and helped realize riverfront and downtown festival and retail projects, parks, hotels, an arena next to the Superdome, and a riverfront street car system..

 

His artwork throughout these decades reflected these same civic, urban and environmental concerns.

 

EXHIBITIONS:

 

2019

NOLA LifeBoat and Trailer, a used 74 Passenger ocean LifeBoat installation on Julia Street in the New Orleans Arts District for White Linen Night

Invisible and Visible Installation, Boyd Satillite Gallery, New Orleans

2018

Invisible Shrimp Boat installation, Crevasse 22 Sculpture Garden, St Bernard Parish LA.

Invisible 21 foot Ocean Racing Sailboat Installation, Lower Ninth Ward, New Orleans

2017

Permiable Flood Gate installation, Crevasse 22 Sculpture Garden, St Bernard Parish, LA.

2016

Robert Rauschenberg Foundation Studio Residency, Captiva Island FL.

2011

Prospect 2 New Orleans, Art by Committee installation

2009

Show of Balls, Studio 527, New Orleans, LA (solo)

2008

Stardust: Objects, Ideas and Prospects, Ogden Museum of Southern Art, New Orleans, LA (solo)

2006

Post Hurricane Katrina Housing Concepts, a collaboration with Frank Gehry

1992

Retrospective, Santa Monica Museum of Contemporary Art

1990

Retrospective, New Orleans Contemporary Arts Center

1988

Shotgun Temple, New Orleans, LA (solo)

Odalisque, Res Nova Gallery, New Orleans, LA (solo)

1987

Deep Space, Art Place Canal Place, New Orleans, LA

1986

Marlina, the World's Largest Goldfish, Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, LA

1985

Shoe City/Bally Shoes, Art Place Canal Place, New Orleans, LA

1984

Art Works '84, Louisiana Expo '84, New Orleans, LA

1983

Artists Triennial, New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA

1982

Mixed Media, Arthur Roger Gallery, New Orleans, LA (solo)

Jackson Square, Pan American Life Center, New Oreleans, LA (solo)

Southern Outdoor Sculpture, Mississippi Museum of Fine Arts, Jackson, MS

1981

Louisiana Experience, Max Hutchinson Gallery, New York, NY (solo)

Shotgun Houses, P.S.1, Long Island City, NY (solo)

Tannen and Tannen, Plaza Tower Building Lobby Gallery, New Orleans, LA

Louisiana Experience, Max Hutchinson Gallery, New York, NY (solo)

Louisiana Major Works, Contemporary Arts Center, New Orleans, LA

Image of the House in Contemporary Art, Lawndale Annex, University of Houston, Houston, TX

1980

Southern Realism, Mississippi Museum of Art, Jackson, MS

1979

Rocking Chair and Hammock Installation, Art Fest, New Orleans, LA

1978

Sportman's Paradise, Antique Shop Installation, New Orleans, LA (solo)

Archesculpture, Architecture/Sculpture Projects, New Orleans, LA (solo)

Ben Franklin, Sculpture Project, Art Fest, New Orleans, LA

1977

Artists Biennial, New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA

1976

N.A.S.A Reject, New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA (solo)

Tannen and LeLand, Studio Exhibit and Party, Old Marigny Church, New Orleans, LA

1975

Artists Biennial, New Orleans Museum of Art, New Orleans, LA

1967

Sculpture Exhibition, Institute of Contemporary Art, Boston, MA

Lazy Eight, Exhibition of Art and Inventions, Cambridge, MA

1965

Soft Playgrounds and Play Sculpture, Boston Children's Museum, Boston, MA

1964

Sculpture and Mural/Drawings, Carpenter Center, Dartmouth College, Hanover, NH (solo)

Sculpture and Architectural Installations, Franconia, NH (solo)

1963

Group Exhibition: Sculpture, Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY

Welfare Island Group Exhibition of Sculpture, Welfare Island, NY

Young Sculptuors, Riverside Museum, New York, NY

1962

“Paper Universe and a Lecture Series of ‘Happenings’,” Pratt Institute, Brooklyn, NY

1961

“Sculpture and Drawing,” Great Jones Gallery, New York, NY196x – 19

1957 and 1958

Sculpture Exhibit, March Gallery, New York, NY