The central theme of Tony Cragg’s work is his preoccupation with the material
world - the reality of objects, which either come from nature, albeit a man-
modified nature or the useful things we make to help us exist. This utilitarian
requirement of the manmade things around us expands the range of forms
possible with Cragg’s sculpture which become metaphors and carriers of
complex information in his visual language.
The work offers a re-examination of the relationship between nature and the
man-made world, a re-evaluation of the information, meanings and poetry
attached to our physical world and our perceptions of reality.
Cragg’s early work used a wide range of objects and materials that he gathered
out of found industrial products. In the early 1980s he became more interested
in influencing the sculpture forms of the material using not only found materials
but also more traditional materials: his so called form languages.
Read moreHis more recent works investigate the relationship between the aesthetic world
of geometric and biomorphic form and the aesthetic world of the organic, where
natural materials take on synthetic forms and synthetic materials at times look
like natural objects. Other works deal with notions of metamorphosis and
evolution, even embryology, while perforation functions as a metaphor for a
journey into the imperceptibility of microcosms and macrocosms.
Cragg’s work in his forthcoming exhibition at Lisson Gallery will be made from
materials such as stone, kevlar (carbon fibre) bronze and wood.
Tony Cragg was born in Liverpool in 1949. He attended the Wimbledon School
of Art before taking his MA at the Royal College of Art in 1977. He represented
Britain at the Venice Biennale in 1988 and was awarded the prestigious Turner
Prize in the following year. He has exhibited extensively and has had major solo
shows at the Tate Gallery, London (1989), Van Abbemuseum, Eindhoven
(1991), Concoran Gallery of Art, Washington (1991), Museo Nacional Centro
de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid (1995), Lenbachhaus, Munich (1998), Centre
Georges Pompidou, Paris (1996), Whitechapel Gallery, London (1997) and the
Tate Gallery, Liverpool (2001). He has recently been awarded the Shakespeare
Prize and an honorary doctorate from the University of Surrey. Cragg lives and
works in Germany. His first gallery exhibition was at the Lisson Gallery in 1979.
Tony Cragg will be exhibiting new work at Lisson Gallery from 26th October to
21st December 2001.
