Friedman is known primarily for his ingenious transformations of everyday materials such as toothpicks, pasta, and chewing gum, into sculpture. In one work, he carved his self-portrait in an aspirin, poking fun at—yet nevertheless honoring—the tradition of marble carving and miniatures. In this self-portrait, he depicts himself as a human barcode by taking a thin vertical slice from a full-length photograph of himself, then stretching it horizontally with the aid of a computer to create a virtually abstract image composed of bands of color.

Open full-size image