Tony Cragg | Sculpture | Buchmann Galerie | 24.02.-13.04.2024

The work Runner (2017) from the series of the same name demonstrates a significant exploration by the artist in his current practice. Depicting movement in a static material such as stone, wood or bronze has been considered challenging in sculpture since antiquity. In modern times, a thread runs from Michelangelo via Bernini to the experimental works of early modernism; with Futurism, for example, Boccioni attempted to depict simultaneous movement in sculpture. The works from the Runner series examine the perception of temporality in a contemporary sense; here, Cragg combines both spatial and temporal elements to form a new figuration. With its peculiarly contradictory and opposing lines of movement, the large wooden sculpture Runner reveals the characteristic “back and forth” to express the flux of these works. Cragg resolves the inherent contradiction of trying to depict movement in a static material by evoking a dynamic of the inner tensions, potentials and processes of the material.

The works from the Lost in Thought series hold a special place in the artist’s oeuvre. Here, psychology meets form: the complex relationships between inside and outside that appear in the sculpture A Head, I Thought (2011) refer to themes such as repression and its relationship to the unconscious. The emergence and concealment of forms and fragments inherent in the work, as well as the mention of a head in the title, present a multitude of associations for the viewer, including how form influences our experience.

The sculpture It is, It isn’t (2016) demonstrates another aspect of the distinctive genesis of form that is so characteristic of Tony Cragg’s work: by bundling and superimposing a series of elliptical columns from the series Elliptical Columns, the artist creates a dramatic form that contradicts the geometrically comprehensible and rational structure of the sculpture.

Double Take (2014) is an impressive sculpture from the Early Forms series, which Cragg began in the mid-1980s. The works in this series are based on the principle of combining two or more objects – usually primary everyday objects such as bowls or vessels – to create one hybrid form. The forms of Double Take were derived from commercially available plastic containers, a clear reference to Cragg’s earlier interest in manufactured forms.

The four works in the exhibition also allow conclusions to be drawn about Tony Cragg’s entirely contemporary conception of content, which arises from his exploration of organic life forms and microbiological structures as well as from his work with everyday materials and modern technology.

Some of the works have already been presented in the artist’s museum exhibitions. This is the first time they have been shown together in this combination.