Tony Cragg, MUST BE

About the artist

British sculptor Tony Cragg (b. 1949, Liverpool) is one of the most influential figures in contemporary sculpture. He studied at the Royal College of Art in London before settling in Wuppertal, Germany, in 1977, where he continues to live and work.

Cragg participated in documenta in 1982 and 1987, represented Britain at the 43rd Venice Biennale and won the Turner Prize in 1988. He was elected a Royal Academician in 1994 and awarded the prestigious Praemium Imperiale for Sculpture in 2007.

Over a career spanning more than five decades, his work has been presented at leading institutions worldwide, including Tate, the Centre Pompidou, Museo Reina Sofía, the State Hermitage Museum, Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Pinakothek der Moderne and the Albertina. In 2011, his sculptures were exhibited at the Musée du Louvre in Paris.

 

About the work

For more than five decades, Tony Cragg has expanded the possibilities of sculpture, challenging our understanding of material as something fixed or static. From found objects to bronze, steel, wood and glass, material has always been at the heart of his practice.

A self-described “radical materialist,” Cragg explores the forms and possibilities inherent within materials. His sculptures appear to grow, twist and move, blurring the boundaries between the natural and the manufactured, abstraction and the human body.

MUST BE embodies this approach. Cast in bronze, its twisting, overlapping forms appear almost elastic, creating a striking tension between the weight of the material and the sense of movement within it.

At once organic and entirely imagined, MUST BE captures Cragg’s ability to transform solid matter into something that appears fluid, changing and alive.