The inaugural exhibition of Wooson Gallery opens on the 24th May, 2012 with the work
of one of the world’s greatest living sculptors “Tony Cragg”.
Tony Cragg is a central figure
in the remarkable generation of British sculptors which emerged in the late 1970s. Tony
Cragg was born in Liverpool in 1949, England and began his education by focusing on
technical studies that led him to work in a biochemistry laboratory before embarking on
his art studies at the Wimbledon School of Art. He was awarded his M.A. from the Royal
College of Art in London in 1977. He has been based in Germany for over three decades
since 1977. He was the winner of the 1988 Turner Prize (the year in which he also
represented Britain at the Venice Biennale), at the Tate Gallery, and of the prestigious
Praemium Imperiale Award, Japan in 2007, he is currently Director of one of the world’s
most important art academies in Dusseldorf.
An artist of great international acclaim and immense energy, Cragg has developed more
possibilities in the making of sculpture than any other sculptor since Henry Moore discovered
the ‘hole’ as positive space. He has employed a lot of materials and tested them
to their limits through a wide variety of means. Cragg’s contribution to the debate on
contemporary sculpture practice is considerable. Early works of the 1970s were mostly
made with found objects through which Cragg questioned and tested possibilities. Later
pieces demonstrated a shift of interest to surface quality and how that could be manipulated,
and a play with unlikely juxtapositions of materials. Results vary from the exquisite
to the grotesque, from the refined to the crude, in bronze, steel, plastic, rubber, glass,
wood, plaster and more.
Bent of mind wrestles with, as Cragg puts it, “man’s relationship with his environment”
and operates as a complex, three-way conversation between “material, object and image
(providing) seemingly endless possibilities of form and meaning.” the sculpture seems
to be in the process of metamorphosis, as if changing from one form into another, thus
confronting the broader idea of evolution itself. Cragg has always believed that making
and viewing sculpture offers essential ways of knowing and understanding. Tony Cragg
produces some of the most extraordinary sculptural forms of our time.
During the past year, there have been several important solo exhibitions of his work worldwide:
Seeing Things at The Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas; Figure In/ Figure Out at The
Louvre, Paris (his exhibition under the glass pyramid at the Louvre is the first to be staged
there by a living artist); Museum Küppersmühle für Moderne Kunst, Duisburg, Germany;
Tony Cragg in 4 D from Flux to Stability at The International Gallery of Modern Art, Venice;
It is, Isn’t It at the Church of San Cristoforo, Lucca, Italy; and Tony Cragg: Sculptures and
Drawings at The Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh.
Also, this is a very busy year for the prolific sculptor Tony Cragg who is mounting four international
exhibitions back to back this spring. The Marian Goodman Gallery’s exhibition
in New York has been a critical success with strong sales reported for the artist. This is
followed by a large exhibition at the CAFAM Bejing, China opening on 2 March, the Museo
d’Arte Lugano in Italy on 30th March and Barlach Haus Hamburg on June 10th. Finally, the
first exhibition at Korean Gallery in Deagu on May 24th.
The exhibition at the Wooson Gallery presents recent sculptures in bronze, corten steel,
wood, cast iron, stone and a large selection of drawings. Highlights of the exhibition
include works from his Rational Beings series. Made from bronze, steel or stone, these
works are characterised by tall columnar forms created by a complex process of building
up circular cross sections on a vertical axis. The resulting effect is a kind of a three dimensional
morphing that occurs as the viewer encounters these works from many angles.
Curiously, and unpredictably, as the viewer moves around these works profiles appear
and disappear. Although appearing initially abstract, they are surprisingly figurative and
evocative. The physical presence of these works is remarkable as, although weighing as
much as 800 kilos, there is an astonishing fluidity and sense of lyricism in his these works.
For more than a decade, Tony Cragg’s sculpture has focused on what he calls “Early
Forms” and “Rational Beings.” In each case, these works look best when the individual
pieces are seen in a kind of semiotic relation to one another. “Early Forms” is Cragg’s
longest-running series of cast works. The press note explains that the series is “a vast array
of unique sculptural forms, derived from a diverse range of vessel types - from ancient
flasks to test-tubes, jam jars and detergent bottles”. Works from the “Rational Beings”
series are “tall columnar forms (in different materials)in which facial profiles emerge and
disappear as one walks around them”.
“You play around with the material, looking for a form, and suddenly you find forms that
say more than you had thought possible, and that is creation, that is poetry.” said Tony
Cragg
Press release courtesy Wooson Gallery.