Artsy_ Marian Goodman Gallery is delighted to present Incidents, an exhibition of new sculptures by Tony Cragg, on view from 28 October through 20 December 2022. The exhibition presents the latest developments and formal innovations in Cragg’s sculptural practice with new works from 2021-2022 in
stone, bronze, steel, and glass.

Over the past three decades, Cragg’s complex approach to polymorphic forms has broadened and transformed our understanding of what sculpture can be and demonstrated how to imagine beyond the confines of the quotidian and utilitarian spheres. Harnessing the expressive potential of materials and
the interpretive syntheses of energies therein, Cragg’s lifelong dedication to the study of the material world – how materials affect, inform, and shape us – is on view in his ever-evolving and acutely observant re-interpretation of the world.

Throughout his career Cragg has experimented with a range of forms, often working in groups or ‘families’ of works. From found objects and assemblages, to cumulative and sedimented forms, to vessels and mathematical structures, and from stacks and striations to human profiles and open structures, Cragg’s varied approaches investigate body, material, object, and space and the relationship between them. Summoning ideas and emotions in the viewer, he challenges us to look beyond the
imitation of nature—to dream beyond the nascent and imagine meaningful forms that have not yet been made. Often these dreams begin in the daily practice of drawing, visualizing the unseen, unearthing the interstices of a new reality.

In the current exhibition, a new series of sculptures are shown here in the US for the first time. Beginning in the North Gallery, sculptures in wood, bronze and stone explore the unexpected interface between abstraction and figuration. Masks, made from stacked and rounded strata, allude to antecedents of striation and compression in Cragg’s work and summon ancient and contemporary forms. Justine, a large abstract bronze sculpture, explores volume and scale. Integers, lush, sinuous forms in bronze, are derived from an intimate series of compositions, and rendered here as a composite of fragments, a torso, for instance, devoid of anatomic elements.

Tony Cragg was born in Liverpool, England in 1949. He has lived and worked in Wuppertal, Germany since 1977. He has been the recipient of numerous awards including the Order of Merit of North Rhine-Westphalia (2018); the Lifetime Achievement in Contemporary Sculpture Award, The International Sculpture Center (2017); the Barnett Newman Foundation Award (2016); the Commander of the Most Excellent Order of the British Empire, (CBE) (2016); the
Rheinischer Kulturpreis, Sparkassen Kulturstiftung, Rhineland (2013); the Cologne Fine Art Award (2012); the prestigious Praemium Imperiale Award, Tokyo (2007).
He represented Britain at the 43rd Venice Biennale in 1988, and the same year was awarded the Turner Prize at the Tate Gallery, London. He served as Director of the Kunstakademie, Dusseldorf, after having been a Tutor and Professor there since 1978.

There have been many important solo exhibitions of Cragg’s work worldwide, most recently at Albertina Museum, Vienna, Austria (2022); Heart/ Herning Museum of Contemporary Art, Herning, Denmark (2022); Museo Novecento, Florence, Italy (2022); Museo del Vetro, Venice, Italy (2021); Haus am Waldsee, Berlin, Germany (2021); Houghton Hall, Norfolk, UK (2021); Boboli Gardens, Florence, Italy (2019); MUDAM Luxembourg (2017); Yorkshire Sculpture Park, UK (2017); Museo Nacional Havana,
Cuba (2017); Von der Heydt, Wuppertal, Germany (2016); Hermitage Museum, St. Petersburg, Russia (2016); Benaki Museum, Athens (2015); Madison Square Park, New York (2014); Heydar Aliyev Center, Baku, Azerbaijan (2014); Lehmbruck Museum, Duisburg, Germany (2013); CAFA Art Museum, Central Academy of Fine Arts, Beijing (2012); The Nasher Sculpture Center, Dallas (2011); Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh (2011); and the Musée du Louvre, Paris (2011).

Hollow Head, ۲۰۲۱

Masks, ۲۰۲۱

Incident (Solo), ۲۰۲۲

Justine, ۲۰۲۱

Processor, ۲۰۲۲

Dreamsleeper, ۲۰۲۲