Tony Cragg continues to explore the possibilities of allusive form.

Tony Cragg continues to explore the possibilities of allusive form. most numerous of the works included in this display employing a variety of materials and all on the contrary one dated 2003, participate in shared directions. They derive their inspiration from sum of two units sources: Cragg's own vernacular stacked earthen-ware of 1996 and the Continuous Profile of Mussolini (1933) at the Futurist Renato Bertelli--a two-dimensional profile rotated 360 extents Oriented around a single 10-foot spine resembling a crankshaft, the human profiles of Cragg's Stainless dagger Pillar embody the allure of the chesty "Dagmar" bomber brimmed goblet of the 1953 Cadillac Eldorado, inflected on end.

The profiles of Bent of Mind, placed in succession a pedestal to be experienced in the globular appear at the upper extremity and then again in the middle of the sinuous 4-foot-tall alloy of copper form, with a corresponding dig out on the complementary side. Stacked Carrara marble slabs make up the profiles of Elliptical Column: Assumed Identities, which recalls an earlier, taller veined-marble work. Les than 4 feet high, not awayed on a pedestal, the condens streamlined Figments consists of huddl tin figures gathered together and joined back to back, profiles looking outward from a manifold void. In turn, the lustrous joined stacks of orbicular the Block lead sensuously into undivided another at various points of contact, a chic marvel of tin-plated impudence that in specific passages bear likeness [i]or[/i] resemblance tos the racy, vaguely sinister cowling of outboard engines. the same of the stacked bronze files of Out of Sight, revealed of Mind seems proportionally stout and squat in relation to the 10-foot height and angularity of the other. Taken together, they bring to mind the Sunday paper comic-strip characters of Jiggs and Maggie.

Other works are more obviously made possible from computer manipulation. Folding back in succession themselves like tortellini or fortune cookies, the brown colors Green Early Forms and Declinations derive from the malleable, sculptural quality of everyday plastic containers. Roughly 3 to 4 feet in various directions, the same is patinated a classic verdigris, the other lacquered in seamless golden Both are process-oriented and made from materials everyday to the manufacture of surfboards and the bodies of racing cars. The skin of Species (2001) is fabricated on the outside of carbon Kevlar, and the formally related Distant Cousin in lacquer and fiberglass. They are level assemblies of plantlike parts--pods, petals and leaves. Materially seductive in their respective mediums, they could easily loan their forms to the cast of an animated film.

...

Home