One of the most influential contemporary art galleries in the world, Lisson Gallery is currently showcasing Tony Cragg’s ‘New Sculptures’ at their Shanghai gallery in China. The exhibition will be on display from 5th November 2021 to 15th January 2022. Featuring seven sculptures created by Cragg between 2018 and 2021, the exhibition is the artist’s first solo showcase with Lisson's Shanghai gallery.
“Making sculpture involves not only changing the form and meaning of the material but also oneself,” says Cragg about the process of sculpting. His sculptures are created by stacking bronze and stone plates on top of each other. Although each of these pieces are created following a similar process, they vary in form, size and visual texture, with each piece carrying a different colour. Borne out of Cragg’s interest to sculpt solid natural entities into the desired form, these layered sculptural pieces appear like geological occurrences in nature.
Characterised by organic geometries that twist and turn, the sculptures are artistic products of experimentation with different materials at different scales and volumes. Composed of several small elements, the final sculptures that populate the exhibition spaces appear like cohesive solid pieces, each carrying a unique identity of its own. Cragg has previously also worked with several different materials, namely marble, glass, sandstone, fiberglass, wood and steel.
Tony Cragg is a prominent UK-based sculptor who uses his sculptures to understand the taxonomic relationship between the different elements that exist in nature. In addition to this, he also treats his sculptures as a medium to gain insight into the impact that material and material forms have on our ideas and emotions. In doing so, he characteristically sculpts pieces that appear like entities salvaged from the natural world. Cragg’s works have previously been showcased at other centres of the Lisson Gallery 15 times.
Established in 1967, the Lisson Gallery is a contemporary art gallery that promotes the works of several international artists from around the world. The gallery has now expanded to establish exhibition galleries across two spaces in London, two in New York, one in Shanghai as well as several temporary spaces in East Hampton and London’s Mayfair District.
The ‘New Sculpture’ exhibition will remain on display from 6th November 2021 to 15th January 2022 at 2/F, 27 Huqiu Road, Huangpu District, Shanghai.
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