NICK TOBIER

Associate Professor, School of Art & Design

Director of National Engagement

Contact

Email: .(JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)
Office: 2080 AA
Phone: (734) 936-0697
Personal Website

Curriculum Vitae

M.F.A., The Milton Avery Graduate Center at Bard College, 1997
Graduate School of Design, Harvard University, 1997 - 1999
B.A. (History and Art), Swarthmore College, 1989

Biography

Prior to his appointment at the School of Art & Design in 2003, Tobier spent four years as assistant professor at the School of Art at Alfred. From 1996 to 1998, he studied landscape architecture at Harvard's Graduate School of Design and subsequently worked as a landscape architect. During the mid-1990s, he served as project manager for Storefront for Art and Architecture, writing critical essays, facilitating public projects and coordinating international competitions as he conducted broad-thinking explorations of architecture and urban space beyond expected function.

As a native New Yorker, Nick Tobier is a lifelong participant-observer of street life and the social life of public places. These inherently layered scenarios are at the core of his work as artist and educator, and Tobier's practice and pedagogy reflect his belief in the power of social dynamism and the fundamental role of artist as catalyst and conduit in this relationship.

Through individual and collective work, Tobier's interest in the potential of public places has manifested itself in built public projects and actions in San Francisco, Detroit and New York, internationally from Toronto to Tokyo, and performances on the stage and in the streets from Milan to Paramaribo, Suriname and at The Edinburgh, Minneapolis and Philadelphia Fringe Festivals. His short performance films have been shown across the world. He is also the author of a series of critical and speculative writings on city space, itinerant entertainment, and forms of public entertainment as radical social strategy.

In his current research and teaching, Tobier focuses on the integration of art and society, and actively challenges artists to expand their self-definitions and scope. These efforts have included partnerships with artists and farmers; critical and celebratory involvements between artists, art students and broad communities; lectures as performances and vice-versa; and a growing commitment to lasting partnerships working with creative individuals and communities from Detroit to Copenhagen.

Visit PLAY to see a video interview with Nick Tobier from The Why Series: Why We Make Creative Work.