Artist:
Tony Cragg
Title:
Versus
Year:
2010
Adress:
Musee Louvre (temporary)
Naturalness
Versus by Tony Cragg is made up of many layers of discs that seem to be worn away by the wind or water. The large object demand respect.
There are no rocks with one (signalred) color. This is clear: this is an artwork.
The chalk cliffs in Normandy come into my mind. These rocks are sometimes worn so much that they become vulnerable giants in the sea.
Versus by Tony Cragg is an artwork that radiates naturalness.
By Theo, www.artatsite.com
Translation
Natuurlijkheid: Versus van Tony Cragg
Versus van Tony Cragg is opgebouwd uit een groot aantal lagen met schijven die lijken door de wind of water uitgesleten te zijn. Het grote object dwingt respect af.
Er zijn geen rotsen met één (signaalrode) kleur. Dit is duidelijk: dit is een kunstwerk.
Ik denk aan de krijtrotsen in Normandië. Deze rotsen zijn soms zover uitgesleten dat zij als kwetsbare reuzen in de zee staan.
Versus van Tony Cragg is een kunstwerk dat natuurlijkheid uitstraalt.
Door Theo, www.artatsite.com
www.sculpture.org.uk:
Early works by Tpny Gragg of the seventies 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 this could be manipulated through unlikely juxtapositions of materials such as bronze, steel, plastic, rubber, glass, wood, plaster and more. Cragg’s found works developed into a series of fabricated ‘vessels. These pestles and mortars, flasks, test tubes and vessels from which liquid flowed are clearly inspired by his early experience as a laboratory technician. These developed into a series entitled ‘Early Forms in which Cragg’s interest was in the ‘container’ as metaphor for the body. His later works, known as ‘Rational Beings, develop this interest into a series of articulated columns, no longer concerned with the organic, but with the dynamic—as profiles emerge and disappear from their surfaces.
Tony Cragg was born in Liverpool in 1949. He worked as a laboratory technician at the Natural Rubber Producers Research Association 1966-68 before attending Gloucestershire College of Art and Design, Cheltenham College. He achieved a BA from Wimbledon College of Art (1970–73) and an MA from the Royal College of Art, London (1973–77). He has lived and worked in Wuppertal, Germany, since 1977. In 2009, he was appointed Director of Kunstakademie Dusseldorf.
Cragg began working at a time when Minimalism and Concept Art were gaining ground.
www.waymarking.com:
It's difficult to describe this work entitled"Versus" by British artist Tony Cragg (b. 1949). Sculpted from wood, the piece is somewhat disk-shaped..but makes me think about the giant red spot on the planet Jupiter... it appears to be a giant storm within itself. The piece is not completely solid...a small chink through the near-center permits the viewer to see through to the other side. The work is dated 2010.
www.lissongallery.com:
Tony Cragg is one of the world’s most foremost sculptors. Constantly pushing to find new relations between people and the material world, he works with stone, wood, glass, stainless steel, aluminium, cast bronze and cast iron, and found objects, from plastic consumer goods to rubbish from the streets.
His early, stacked works present a taxonomical understanding of the world, and he has said that he sees manmade objects as 'fossilized keys to a past time which is our present'. So too, the floor and wall arrangements of objects that he started making in the 1980s blur the line between manmade and natural landscapes: they create an outline of something familiar, where the contributing parts relate to the whole.
Cragg has always had, from an early age, a passionate interest in science and natural history and worked as a young man as a lab technician at the National Rubber Producers Research Association (1966–68), an experience that is reflected in his vigorous approach to material. He has said, 'I see a material or an object as having a balloon of information around it' (1992). For him form and meaning are interdependent, any change in form changes the ‘balloon of information' and vice versa, so that any change in materials also changes meaning and significance. Cragg understands sculpture as a study of how material and material forms affect and form our ideas and emotions.
Versus by Tony Cragg is made up of many layers of discs that seem to be worn away by the wind or water. The large object demand respect.
There are no rocks with one (signalred) color. This is clear: this is an artwork.
The chalk cliffs in Normandy come into my mind. These rocks are sometimes worn so much that they become vulnerable giants in the sea.
Versus by Tony Cragg is an artwork that radiates naturalness.
By Theo, www.artatsite.com
Translation
Natuurlijkheid: Versus van Tony Cragg
Versus van Tony Cragg is opgebouwd uit een groot aantal lagen met schijven die lijken door de wind of water uitgesleten te zijn. Het grote object dwingt respect af.
Er zijn geen rotsen met één (signaalrode) kleur. Dit is duidelijk: dit is een kunstwerk.
Ik denk aan de krijtrotsen in Normandië. Deze rotsen zijn soms zover uitgesleten dat zij als kwetsbare reuzen in de zee staan.
Versus van Tony Cragg is een kunstwerk dat natuurlijkheid uitstraalt.
Door Theo, www.artatsite.com
www.sculpture.org.uk:
Early works by Tpny Gragg of the seventies 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 this could be manipulated through unlikely juxtapositions of materials such as bronze, steel, plastic, rubber, glass, wood, plaster and more. Cragg’s found works developed into a series of fabricated ‘vessels. These pestles and mortars, flasks, test tubes and vessels from which liquid flowed are clearly inspired by his early experience as a laboratory technician. These developed into a series entitled ‘Early Forms in which Cragg’s interest was in the ‘container’ as metaphor for the body. His later works, known as ‘Rational Beings, develop this interest into a series of articulated columns, no longer concerned with the organic, but with the dynamic—as profiles emerge and disappear from their surfaces.
Tony Cragg was born in Liverpool in 1949. He worked as a laboratory technician at the Natural Rubber Producers Research Association 1966-68 before attending Gloucestershire College of Art and Design, Cheltenham College. He achieved a BA from Wimbledon College of Art (1970–73) and an MA from the Royal College of Art, London (1973–77). He has lived and worked in Wuppertal, Germany, since 1977. In 2009, he was appointed Director of Kunstakademie Dusseldorf.
Cragg began working at a time when Minimalism and Concept Art were gaining ground.
www.waymarking.com:
It's difficult to describe this work entitled"Versus" by British artist Tony Cragg (b. 1949). Sculpted from wood, the piece is somewhat disk-shaped..but makes me think about the giant red spot on the planet Jupiter... it appears to be a giant storm within itself. The piece is not completely solid...a small chink through the near-center permits the viewer to see through to the other side. The work is dated 2010.
www.lissongallery.com:
Tony Cragg is one of the world’s most foremost sculptors. Constantly pushing to find new relations between people and the material world, he works with stone, wood, glass, stainless steel, aluminium, cast bronze and cast iron, and found objects, from plastic consumer goods to rubbish from the streets.
His early, stacked works present a taxonomical understanding of the world, and he has said that he sees manmade objects as 'fossilized keys to a past time which is our present'. So too, the floor and wall arrangements of objects that he started making in the 1980s blur the line between manmade and natural landscapes: they create an outline of something familiar, where the contributing parts relate to the whole.
Cragg has always had, from an early age, a passionate interest in science and natural history and worked as a young man as a lab technician at the National Rubber Producers Research Association (1966–68), an experience that is reflected in his vigorous approach to material. He has said, 'I see a material or an object as having a balloon of information around it' (1992). For him form and meaning are interdependent, any change in form changes the ‘balloon of information' and vice versa, so that any change in materials also changes meaning and significance. Cragg understands sculpture as a study of how material and material forms affect and form our ideas and emotions.