Shop The Show: Tony Cragg’s New Sculptures Reimagine the Fundamental Building Blocks of Nature and the Human Body

Installation view "Tony Cragg: Sculptures" 2021. Courtesy of Buchmann Galerie.

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What You Need to Know: “Tony Cragg: Sculpture” at Berlin’s Buchmann Galerie presents new works by one of the most esteemed sculptors of our time.

Here, Cragg continues his investigation of the figure by creating new and exciting ways to render forms through patterns of duplication, nesting, and scaling.

At times the works are elegant: in Integer (2020), two wooden forms rest against one another like the torsos of two bodies in a work reminiscent of Jean Arp.

Other times, the results are uncanny; in Manipulations (2017), a giant bronze hand sprouts smaller hands like florets. Here, form and material work in unison to create defining forms.

Installation view “Tony Cragg: Sculptures” 2021. Courtesy of Buchmann Galerie.

Why We Like It: Tony Cragg’s works examine the fundamental building blocks of the world, nature, the human body, and technology. Since the 1970s, Cragg has been refining his processes of layering and stacking, conjuring up geological formations to push against gravity.

What the Gallery Says: “This exhibition shows the diverse formal vocabulary of Tony Cragg. It is fascinating to see how Cragg constantly pushes the boundaries of what’s possible technically to create sculptures of intriguing beauty that stand against our often too dull environment. Cragg has stated this clearly already in 2006: ‘Utilitarianism and the lowest common denominator decision-making that accompanies it destroys cultures and nature, and fills our world with simple parameters and dumb geometries.'”