CRAGG, TONY
1949 Liverpool

Title: Listeners (Radar Houses).
Date: 2015.
Technique: Cast iron, corroded.
Measurement: 55.5 x 62 x 60 cm.
Notation: Signed at the lower inner edge: Cragg.



Provenance:
- - Galerie Osper, Cologne

- Private collection, North Rhine-Westphalia



- Sculpture as a powerful visual and intellectual statement that goes beyond the purely aesthetic experience

- The artist’s distinctive stylistic language

- A warm, brown patina provides an interesting contrast to the technoid forms



Tony Cragg’s sculpture Listeners is composed of brown, corroded cast iron. The composition comprises several concavely curved elements reminiscent of radar dishes, oriented in different directions as though listening attentively on all sides. Here, heavy metal is combined with an open formal language: an ensemble of seemingly delicate receiving devices visually and imaginatively probes the surrounding space. Cragg deliberately employs the rusted patina of the iron, lending Listeners an archaic quality, as though the work had emerged from an industrial past. At the same time, the surface appears organic, creating a bridge between technology and nature. This approach to material — allowing corrosion and emphasising physical substance — is characteristic of Cragg’s oeuvre. He explores the expressive potential of materials, imbuing even industrial metals with an unexpected sensuality. Listeners integrates seamlessly into Cragg’s wider body of work, which is shaped by an experimental engagement with forms drawn from everyday life and science. Since his early works incorporating found objects, Cragg has explored the tension between recognisability and abstraction — an approach that is equally evident in Listeners. On the one hand, the sculpture evokes associations with technical listening devices; on the other, it remains abstract and free of utilitarian purpose.

Tony Cragg is regarded as one of the defining sculptors of contemporary art, having incorporated industrial materials and everyday forms into artistic practice since the 1980s. Listeners serves as an exemplary case in point: here, the weight of metal meets a dynamic, almost communicative form. The sculpture demonstrates Cragg’s ability to breathe life into heavy, inert materials — analytically conceived, yet sensually compelling



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#Tony Cragg #Abstraction #Germany #Post-War Art #2010s #Post War.







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