Tony Cragg MADE ON EARTH

HEART presents the first retrospective exhibition in Denmark featuring works by the pre-eminent British sculptor Tony Cragg. The exhibition spans Cragg’s entire oeuvre from his 1970s black-and-white photographs and rough sculptures made of garbage over the colourful 1980s works that gave him his breakthrough to the virtuoso sculptures created in recent years.

Tony Cragg explores the possibilities offered by different types of materials, including in terms of meaning-making. His practice incorporates residual products and scraps, and he began working with plastic at an early stage of his career. There is no overt critique of consumer culture in his choice of material; rather, it may signify a certain acceptance of the existence, properties and even beauty of plastic. In this sense, Tony Cragg’s insistent awareness of his chosen materials point back to key aspects of the HEART collection, including Piero Manzoni and the Arte Povera movement, who each in their own way worked with residual and waste materials in their works.

Tony Cragg’s works evade clear-cut conclusions, instead inviting individual reflection on topics such as consumerism and the concept of throw-away society. Topics that have only become even more relevant since he first started working with them.