PARIS+ PAR ART BASEL 2023

Buchmann Galerie 19–22 October 2023 Paris

Press Release

Buchmann Galerie is pleased to present the large-scale bronze sculpture Willow by Tony Cragg in the Jardin des Tuileries as part of the Paris+ par Art Basel public program.

Willow belongs to a group of about a dozen different works in a variety of materials and sizes. The bronze sculpture exhibited here is the largest one in this series. It grew out of the artist’s encounter with a willow tree near the house where he spends his summers. The sculpture’s layers of circular forms refer to becoming, moving and growing. Despite bronze being a hard metal, the sculptures soft, flowing forms seem to come alive, oscillating in contemplation between plant-like patterns, organic abstraction and protective folds.

Starting from drawings, Willow demonstrates Tony Cragg’s practice of taking intricate shapes, patterns and structures from the natural environment and visually transforming them. The artist’s themes and diverse vocabulary of forms stem as much from his study of organic life and microbiological structures as from his work with everyday materials and modern techniques. Cragg’s work addresses fundamental questions about the relationship between body, material, object and space. Thus, the artist explores the connection between staticity and movement, technology and nature, between a rational form and the emotion it evokes.

The presentation is part of the exhibition La Cinquième Saison, curated by Annabelle Ténèze, director of the Musée du Louvre-Lens, and conceived in collaboration with the Musée du Louvre. The exhibition explores the garden as a space of mineral, aquatic and vegetal activity and cohabitation, from flourishing plants and flowing water to strolling visitors and foraging animals.

The installation of Willow in the Jardin des Tuileries, a park that exemplifies the 16th and 17th centuries’ desire to tame the natural world as a symbol of man’s mastery over nature, also raises the question of how we can renegotiate our relationship with the natural environment and emancipate ourselves from the dominant anthropocentric dynamic that currently underlies it.

The sculpture will be on display from 8 October to 29 October.

The official opening will take place on 17 October from 5 pm to 7 pm.