Tony Cragg, Transfer

On the occasion of Florence Art Week, the Museo Novecento is hosting one of the greatest exponents of international sculpture, Tony Cragg (Liverpool, 1949), who will be the protagonist of the major monographic exhibition TONY CRAGG. Transfer, curated by Sergio Risaliti and Stefania Rispoli, from September 22, 2022 to January 15, 2023. The exhibition presents a selection of sculptures and works on paper by the British master, best known for contributing to a renewal of plastic language through the introduction of new materials and new techniques, among the most experimental and innovative of our time. The project, absolutely unprecedented, is designed as a mediating tool aimed at presenting not only the works (sculptures and drawings) but also the artist's creative process. A 'special experience to bring the visitor closer to the contemplation and reading of a world of original forms that amplify perceptions and imaginations between the natural world and artificial invention, between organic and technological. A chance to delve into the work of a master who opened up new and unprecedented possibilities of expression to art, new strands of research and a courageous experimentation with materials, technologies and sources of inspiration that have influenced generations of artists from the 1970s to the present.

"An artist capable of telling the story of nature and the environment through his works, using the most varied materials, in a continuous and constant experimentation: hosting Tony Cragg's exhibition in Florence is an honor and a great satisfaction, an appointment that goes to enrich the schedule of Florence Art Week," highlighted Deputy Mayor and Councillor for Culture Alessia Bettini. "This monographic exhibition will make it possible to discover one of the protagonists of the current art scene, thanks to a rich selection of his works, also accompanied by drawings and watercolors, to which are added monumental sculptures placed in the cloister of the Museo Novecento and in the Cortile degli Uomini of theIstituto degli Innocenti, in a beautiful synergy between realities active in the cultural field that still demonstrates how by teaming up we always achieve the best goals. Also on this occasion, Renaissance and contemporary art renew their virtuous bond, which is increasingly the figure of our city."

"In the Institute's 2022-2026 mandate program, we stressed the importance of promoting and enhancing the Institute's great and unique historical, artistic and cultural heritage," says Maria Grazia Giuffrida, President of theIstituto degli Innocenti. "Hosting in our spaces a work by the well-known contemporary artist Tony Cragg-as we have already done with Jenny Saville-is a way to emphasize that continuity and enhancement that we are seeking. The relationship between past and present is not a static one but one that is in constant flux. Opening ourselves to the city and to collaborations with other important museums and institutions as in this case allows us to revitalize our monumental complex, considered by most to be the first example of Renaissance architecture."

"The major monographic exhibition of Tony Cragg is part of a path of projects dedicated to British art that has seen protagonists at the Museo Novecento from Henry Moore to Jenny Saville, not forgetting the solo exhibition of Antony Gormely at Forte Belvedere a few years ago," explains Sergio Risaliti, director of the Museo Novecento. "This demonstrates the special affection of the city of Florence for the history of British art and an undoubted strength of expression and research of these artists who are absolute protagonists of the artistic evolution of the last and of this century. Tony Cragg is one of those artists capable of radical beginnings, of an evident consistency, of an inventive capacity and experimentation that never pays for its achievements. An artist who has opened up to new generations of creatives, who has transmitted the spell of forms and, above all, has made new generations aware of how strong is the link between the artist and Nature, as well as between art and the sciences. Another salient aspect of his magisterium is curiosity, the courage to always experiment with new materials and new ideational and working processes. In his universe, the hand coexists with robotics, the sense of beauty and wonder with an interest in scientific thinking and achievements in the varied fields of chemistry and geology. The title Transfer explains well how for Cragg thought is the generator of ever new forms by elevating matter to an unpredictable experience, which once again detaches art from being a supreme activity in search of a meaning unprecedented from what remains dependent on mere functional purpose."

Tony Cragg's entire artistic research can be read as a tribute to the infinite possibilities of form and to that limitless variety of solutions that only art, together with nature, can evoke. His earliest works, dating from the late 1970s - the era of Minimalism, Conceptual Art, Land Art and Arte Povera - were born from the assemblage of common objects (such as tools, furniture, small artifacts and discarded materials) and were influenced by the tradition of Duchampian ready-made and Surrealist object trouvé. Later, philosophical studies and scientific research began to influence his practice, leading him to experiment with materials (from bronze to resins, steel to plastic, plaster, wood, glass, domestic to industrial objects, organic to synthetic) and to create sculptures that still combine craftsmanship with technology, often making use of robotics.

In his works, Cragg draws from an inexhaustible source of inspiration that is the observation of what surrounds us: from nature with its organic compositions, to the crystalline structures of minerals; from digitally processed images, to artificially created products in the laboratory; from archaeology, to geology; from art history, to biology. "Nature has been producing wonderfully intricate forms and structures for millions of years-it's a diversity that fascinates me. We, on the other hand, produce rather simple, repetitive, easily reproducible forms based on simple geometries." This extreme curiosity for the 'forms of the world,' whether natural or man-made, and of confidence in the expressive capabilities of art translates into an experimentation that sets no limits and is constantly searching for new visions. The sculptures are generated from a root, a central structure that supports them, from which they unravel to generate many different ramifications, imitating what nature does with its forms: "I want to make work that has the same intense effect on me as looking at Nature. In this sense, I have been fascinated by the way the rational constructions underlying the forms translate into emotional qualities." In the artistic process, Cragg continually takes, creates, manipulates and distorts form to create semantically ambiguous sculptures that, moving between abstraction and figuration, can as much evoke articulated natural landscapes, such as fjord inlets, as they can give us the illusion of representing a human figure or a familiar object.

The Transfer exhibition is a tribute to sculpture, that magnificent obsession that has accompanied Cragg since his early days. Indeed, the exhibition rooms host a selection of small and medium-sized works along with drawings and watercolors that are meant to give back an idea of his prolific and multifaceted activity. Arranged according to stylistic and formal criteria, the more than one hundred works reveal a coherence and organicity intrinsic to all of Cragg's work, showing an expressive language meticulously constructed over the years based on the idea that the creative process is also a path of discovery. The artist always proceeds in the same way-from drawing to choosing materials, experimenting with technique, and selecting color-working with the material and learning from it and its reactions. In this way the work only unfolds step by step in its making, revealing the infinite possibilities of form.
The works located between the ground floor and the second floor of the Museo Novecento are joined for the first time by three monumental sculptures exhibited in the museum's cloister (Versus, Masks, Spring) and one in the Cortile degli Uomini of theIstituto degli Innocenti (Stack), which dialogue with the architecture of the places conceived in the Renaissance as environments dedicated to retreat and meditation. Once again, the collaboration between the Museo Novecento and one of the city's oldest institutions is renewed, under the banner of the contamination between ancient and contemporary, the past and present of art.

The exhibition is conceived as an instrument of mediation as well as exhibition, aimed at recounting the artist's creative elaboration process. In this sense, the rooms on the second floor present numerous drawings conceived as essential and preparatory tools for plastic elaboration, while those on the ground floor recreate, through the layout, the artist's studio, a place of creation but also of life central to his work. In Wuppertal, Germany, where he moved in the late 1970s, Cragg in fact created a design space conceived as a veritable citadel of art, a scientific laboratory with technicians and craftsmen working simultaneously on several works, testing in workshops the limits and capabilities of techniques and materials. Not far from there in 2008 he founded the Skulpturenpark Waldfrieden, an outdoor sculpture park that displays works by many contemporary artists, including his own, testifying to his continuing dedication to sculpture in the broadest sense.

TONY CRAGG (Liverpool, 1949)
After graduation he worked for two years as a laboratory technician in the field of biochemical research. During this time he began drawing and was admitted in 1969 to Gloucestershire College of Art and Design and later to Wimbledon School of Art. In 1973 he enrolled at the Royal College of Art in London, where he concentrated mainly on sculpture. Before he began working with traditional materials such as stone, iron and bronze, his works are conceived as assemblages of discarded elements and objets trouvés, and his research is influenced by Minimalism and Land Art. In 1976 he began teaching at the École des Beaux-Arts in Metz, and the following year he moved to Wuppertal, his first wife's hometown, where he still lives today and where in 2008 he founded the Skulpturenpark Waldfrieden, an outdoor sculpture park that exhibits works by many contemporary artists, including his own. From 1978 to 1988 he was a lecturer at the Art Academy in Düsseldorf, then in Berlin at the University of the Arts where he taught sculpture, and in 2006 in Düsseldorf at the Art Academy, where he was director from 2009 to 2014.

From 1977 onward his work has been presented in the world's major museums and institutions, and his works have become part of the most important public and private art collections. He has been represented several times at the Venice Biennale and Documenta in Kassel, as well as at the São Paulo and Sydney Biennales. In 1988 he was awarded the Turner Prize. After receiving several honorary doctorates and many other eminent awards, he was appointed Commander of the British Empire in 2003. In 2007 he was awarded the Praemium Imperiale by the Japanese Imperial Court as one of today's leading sculptors.

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