[4] These sculptures depict, among other things, huge pennies, pudgy characters in business suits with moneybag heads, helmeted workers holding giant tools, and an alligator crawling out from under a sewer cover.

[7] Known primarily as a public artist, Otterness has exhibited across the United States and internationally, including New York City, Indianapolis, Beverly Hills, The Hague, Munich, Paris, Valencia and Venice.

The sculpture ensemble is meant to represent the world outside the playground, "a broad social allegory on art and life, where the games of power and control are played out in miniature … an imaginative park with things to touch and stories to invent.

[13] The New York Times noted, "Mr. Otterness worked hard to find creative ways to place his sculpture, navigating around the rules of stations design.

One of Otterness's earliest public art works, The New World, was installed in 1991 for the Edward R. Roybal Federal Building in Los Angeles, California.

[15] Otterness subsequently received Federal Courthouse commissions in Portland, Oregon (Law of Nature, 1997), Sacramento, California (Gold Rush, 1999) and Minneapolis, Minnesota (Rock Man, 1999).

From September 20, 2004, to March 18, 2005, Tom Otterness on Broadway, his largest exhibition to date featured 25 different works installed between Columbus Circle and 168th Street in Washington Heights, Manhattan.

The project was sponsored by the City of New York Parks and Recreation Department, the Broadway Mall Association, and Marlborough Gallery, and traveled to three other cities—Indianapolis, Beverly Hills, and Grand Rapids, Michigan.

His 1999 Feats of Strength is a collection of his iconic whimsical bronze figures representing faculty and students interacting with pieces of the natural sandstone at Western Washington University.

Shot Dog Film was briefly mentioned as having "provoked a small scandal [in 1980]" in a 1997 New York Times article which dismissed it as "a seemingly uncharacteristic gesture that he has since declined to discuss.

[29] Following the Battery Park City Authority's rejections, in 2011, there was renewed controversy over the film, with animal rights groups protesting the selection of Otterness for a major sculpture project at the Memorial Art Gallery of the University of Rochester.

"[33] In October 2013, Lincoln, Nebraska Mayor Chris Beutler decided against purchasing a $500,000 train sculpture from Otterness for the city's West Haymarket development, after residents objected to Shot Dog Film.

Citing the unity brought about by the city's development, the mayor said, "...the artist's past behavior in this instance has created a level of division in the community that is simply not acceptable.

They imitated the Otterness style, a blend of whimsy and biting commentary on corruption and greed, depicting a man pointing a gun at a dog, and a distant bystander.

[36] Some early boxing fights in the 1970s were filmed as part of his no wave punk art period, and he has won prizes for his tai chi in the school of William C. C.