Internationally renowned British sculptor Tony Cragg (1949) is presented here through a selection of his latest sculptures as well as an overview of his graphic works, showing his artistic path and creative process from the initial idea to the final object. Tony Cragg has set his relations between the natural and the artificial. In his work, there is a momentum swinging towards the invisible and the visible. Spirituality fails to be overlapped by the medium of idealistic support. The materials this creator uses could be a path against himself from the outset. Each one of them recycles, transforms, collides and produces changes to adapt to later on, just like the planet's tectonic forces - in orders that coexist with its instability. The artist proclaims the function of the imagination beyond the mutilation of words, wishing to find a vocabulary for the emotions and effects that breaks ties with positivism and favours our way of grasping the universe.
Révélée à la fin des années 70, l'oeuvre de Tony Cragg s'est affirmée comme profondément singulière, habitée à la fois par le sentiment du temps présent et la mémoire des origines, par la conquête du monde apparent et la fascination pour les structures invisibles. Archéologie de la vie moderne, ses sculptures puisent leurs images et leurs matériaux aux sources de la vie quotidienne et leur mode d'élaboration aux domaines les plus larges, incluant l'artisanat, l'industrie et la peinture.
James Turrell is widely acknowledged as one of the most important artists working today. From the mid 1960s onwards his principal concern has been the way we apprehend light and space. His study of mathematics and perceptual psychology, as well as his Quaker upbringing and background as a pilot, inform his practice. His first exhibition in 1967 of 'projection pieces' used high-intensity light projectors to give the illusion of a solid geometrical object, often seemingly floating in space. From these investigations of light, Turrell went on to begin his series of 'Skyspaces'. These are enclosed viewing chambers that affect our perception of the sky. Since then he has continued to create works using light as his medium. Perhaps his most celebrated works are his 'Ganzfeld' chambers, whole spaces immersed in light; as well as his more recent 'Tall Glass' series, which resemble windows of slowly changing color. Meanwhile, Turrell continues work on a monumental project at Roden Crater, an extinct volcano in Arizona. Here he has created a series of viewing chambers, tunnels and apertures to heighten our sense of the heavens and earth in one of the most ambitious artistic endeavors of modern times. In summer/autumn 2015, Houghton Hall, Norfolk, hosted an ambitious and significant exhibition of James Turrell's light pieces, many collected by the Marquess of Cholmondeley, owner of Houghton, who has long been an admirer of his work. This publication has been produced to document and to accompany the exhibition - a project devoted to James Turrell's work has been a long-held ambition of Lord Cholmondeley. He first discovered Turrell's work twenty years ago, and in 2000 invited him to Houghton to install a 'Skyspace' amongst the trees on the west side of the house. Soon afterwards, a rusty water tank was removed from an eighteenth-century folly in the park to make way for his atmospheric interior space, 'St Elmo's Breath'. The exhibition was centered around works from the Houghton collection, which also includes projections, a 'Tall Glass', holograms, and prints. The exhibition was complemented by further loans to help illustrate the broad spectrum of Turrell's work; and a unique, site-specific installation was created especially for Houghton - 'The Illumination'- lighting the whole west façade of the house that could be viewed from dusk. LightScape follows three highly acclaimed exhibitions by Turrell in 2013/14 at the Guggenheim, New York, the Los Angeles County Museum of Art, and the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. The National Museum of Australia, Canberra has also hosted a major retrospective of his work, which closed just as the exhibition at Houghton Hall opened. The publication includes a foreword by David Cholmondeley, a text by Peter Murray, and an interview with the artist by Hiram C. Butler. Designed by Peter B. Willberg and printed in Italy, this hardback, cloth-covered publication is essential reading for all admirers of Turrell's oeuvre.
This career-spanning publication focuses on the history of Tony Cragg's 'Stack' works that began in the late 1960s, when, as a student, he began piling up miscellaneous and recycled detritus from the studio in order to create large rectilinear sculptures that refuted the usual clean lines of Minimalism. The artist has variously stacked, gathered and layered ever since, deploying various acts of stratification, compilation, accrual and accumulation in his work. The book contains a major essay by Dr. Jon Wood, entitled "Strata, structures, stories: Stacking in Cragg's sculpture" that spans over five decades of making and reveals what continues to set him apart from other sculptors of his time. Exhibition: Lisson Gallery, London, UK (20.11.2019-29.02.2020)
This volume compiles ideas and projects from well-known artists, architects, designers, filmmakers and researchers on mountainous regions not only in Switzerland, but worldwide. It includes writings by Vito Acconci, Doug Aitken, Ron Arad, Nairy Baghramian and Jan von Brevern, as well as a discussion on architect Bruno Taut's "Crystal Chain Letters."
"The future of sculpture has only just begun. Its potential is greater now than ever before, and its possibilities are just starting. Its language and its forms are just beginning to evolve." So says Tony Cragg, a believer not just in sculpture, but in freestanding, made-from-scratch abstraction. Cragg refuses to accept the domination of installation and the ready-made. His dedication to the form as he works in it--to its complexities, to its ability to interrogate the world and heighten our sensitivity--and his consistent espousal of that dedication, have given him an intriguing and unusual role in contemporary art. Cragg is a promoter of his medium in an age of anxiety about medium-based definitions, an age of crossover. There are plenty of words here, in an interview and three essays, but it's the sketches, watercolors, installation views, studio photographs and the sculptures themselves that make up the bulk of this new volume.
