Tony Cragg (b. 1949)

Tony Cragg’s Loop (2014) spins and spirals upwards from its support, coiling with tumultuous energy. In this work, Cragg breaks forth from predictable forms and shapes to explore uncharted geometric fields. The lines of the sculpture are a transformative, labyrinthine surface, emphasising three-dimensional volume through contour and curve in elusive and graceful asymmetry. These topographies of shape evoke natural processes like the erosion of surfaces by the tireless ebb and flow of water, the rage of a sand storm as it whips through the desert, or the formation of clouds moments before they are carried away by the wind. Working in unadorned wood, Cragg heightens these associations with natural form and channels the elemental, autotelic beauty of flora, fauna, fossils, and crystals.

Here, the concept of the sublime—the thrill of terror felt by eighteenth century philosophers and artists when confronted by the vastness of the natural world—is recaptured, reworked, and brought into a contemporary discourse: an awe-inspiring approach to sculpture that won Cragg a Turner Prize in 1988. The artist explained that ‘naturally occurring formations, materials, phenomena and objects, are part of the original inventory of the universe and as such provide us with a vocabulary of qualities which also has become the language for describing human activities and their results’ (T. Cragg, quoted in Tony Cragg: The Turner Prize 1988, exh. cat., Tate, London, 1989, p. 15). For the artist, sculpture is just as much a method for describing our experience of nature as is quantum physics or empirical scientific research; in the metaphysical and metamorphic power of his medium, Cragg reflects the overwhelming wonder of living in the natural world.