When you walk into Tony Cragg’s solo exhibition at the Buchmann Galerie in Berlin, you feel almost like Alice falling down the rabbit hole into the Wonderland; visitors are surrounded by abstract sculptures which somehow carry a faint resemblance to objects and shapes encountered in everyday life, filtered here through the surreal imagination of the artist.The show is an intimate and yet comprehensive summary of Cragg’s artistic career, now spanning more than forty years. Born in 1949 in Liverpool, England, Cragg spent the first decade or so of his artistic life in Great Britain, where he completed his education at, among else, the Royal College of Art in London. In 1977, Cragg moved to Wuppertal in western Germany where he has lived since. The artist has had numerous exhibitions in the most important contemporary galleries and art shows, including Venice Biennale, Tate Gallery in London, and Centre Georges Pompidou in Paris. His list of achievements includes the Turner Prize, which he won in 1988, the title of Commander of the British Empire, awarded to him in 2002, and the Praemium Imperiale for Sculpture in 2007.Cragg’s artistic philosophy is centered around his concept of “materialism.” Sculpture for him is a visual language or a means of communication between people and their surroundings. As Cragg explains, “material is so complicated and sublime that [...] if we understood more about that, we’d be a long way down the road to understanding our existences.” His early sculptures, such as “Axehead” (1982), follow in the footsteps of Arte Povera and Dadaism in their use of found objects such as pieces of furniture, tools, and discarded pieces of various materials. The objects are carefully arranged on the floor, filling up a sector of a circle. Even in “Axehead,” one can discern a leitmotif present in all of Cragg’s work, namely an interest in the relationship between organic and man-made forms. The artist describes it as a correlation between symmetrical and irregular shapes: “In the end, you see the object is very much both geometric and organic, and by the way, so am I. I do look quite organic, as you do, but we are, in all sorts of levels, very geometric.”In comparison to that early work, the sculptures at Buchmann Galerie are an even more refined representation of the tension between rampant organic forms found in nature and the rigidity of industrially made objects. The billowing and wavy shapes of “Tommy” (stone, 2014) and “Parts of Life” (bronze, 2014) seem to sway under the pressure of a nonphysical wind. The hand of the artist leaves barely any marks on these sculptures, which seem to spring from the ground without any human intervention, like fungi or moss in a forest. At the same time, the bright yellow color of “Parts of Life” imitates industrially manufactured materials, melted plastic perhaps, or acrylic paint.Seeing Cragg’s artworks is a purely subjective experience, triggering visions of objects and shapes we have all encountered in our everyday existence. Thus, the artist explores the ways in which people perceive the world and how they make sense of it. Is it necessary for us to see symmetry and order in every object or situation we encounter to be able to understand them? How do we react in the presence of forms which seem chaotic and incomprehensible? One of the most impressive qualities of Cragg’s Berlin exhibition is the way the artist enters into a dialogue with each and every visitor and asks these and other questions without revealing obvious or patronizing answers.“Tony Cragg. Sculptures,” through April 25, 2015, Buchmann Galerie Berlin.
↧