Tony Cragg - Contemporary Art Evening Sale London Friday, October 16, 2009 | Phillips

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  • Provenance

    Galerie Bernd Klüser, Munich

  • Exhibited

    Kunsthalle Bern, Tony Cragg, 30 April - 5 June, 1983; Kassel, Documenta VIII, June - September, 1987

  • Literature

    Exhibition catalogue, Kunsthalle Bern, Tony Cragg, Bern, 1983, p. 79, no. 38 (illustrated)

  • Catalogue Essay

    In early 1980s Britain, a historically turbulent time both socially and politically, a new form of sculpture emerged lead by a young graduate of London's Royal College of Art named Tony Cragg. After the austere rationalism of Minimalism, Cragg and his contemporaries sought to reconnect sculpture with the messy, everyday world of objects, to reflect the influence of science and technology and to evoke social relations. The present lot, a beautifully arranged large scale floor sculpture from 1982, is a prime early example of Cragg's use of found materials, discarded objects and disposed and recycled household goods. The artist collected forty objects and painted them various shades of blue then layed them out on the floor in a half moon shape giving the random detritus an aesthetic and symbolic meaning. 'Tony Cragg's sculptures are vivid references to the daily attack on our senses to which we city-dwellers are subjected, and with these bricollages the barely thirty-year old Cragg shot to the forefront of the British avant garde during the early Thatcher years as a pioneer figure.' (C. Lichtenstern, Tony Cragg's Extension of the Figure, The Emancipation from the Statis to Kinaesthetic Perception, in exhibition catalogue, Museum der Moderne Salzburg, Tony Cragg: Second Nature, Salburg, 2009, p. 233) 

38

Blue Horn (Axt)

1982
Mixed media installation comprised of 40 painted found objects.
Approximate installation dimensions: 175 x 360 x 470 cm. (69 x 142 x 185 in).
This work is accompanied by an installation template.

Estimate
£80,000 - 100,000 ‡♠

Sold for £82,850

Contemporary Art Evening Sale

17 Oct 2009
London