Tony Cragg's monumental sculptures in the Boboli Gardens.

From May 5 to October 27, 2019, sixteen monumental works by British artist Tony Cragg (Liverpool, 1949), one of the best-known and most acclaimed exponents of contemporary sculpture, will be on public view in the most evocative locations of the Boboli Gardens, on the occasion of the exhibition Tony Cragg at Boboli.

The exhibition aims to recount the last twenty years of his artistic production, from 1997 to the present. Geysers of shining steel, bronze stalagmites of prehistoric appearance and gigantic resin flowers, colossal and candid stems, hilly eruptions and elliptical forms, colossal interweavings of imaginary fossil forests, metal casts that shudder, twist and fold, caught in their last soft phase before congealing: Tony Cragg’s monumental sculptures will stand in dialogue with the tidy nature of the Boboli Gardens and the cityscape.

Visitors will be amazed throughout the exhibition by the new interpretive key of the sculptures and the place that hosts them.

Through his works, Cragg intends to bring out new meanings and languages, starting from a relentless exploration of matter and its relationship with its surroundings. Matter sits side by side with History.

“This is the first time that a major Italian museum has dedicated a monographic exhibition to Tony Cragg, and the Boboli Gardens, with its natural wonders, ancient artworks and highly rational structure, is the perfect theater for this exhibition. In fact, the theme of sculpture in the park, central to the artist’s poetics, necessarily includes forms inspired by nature and its mysterious force, which Cragg creates to provoke a strong reaction in the viewer, whether of pure emotion or intellectual interpretation,” commented Eike Schmidt, director of the Uffizi Galleries.

Tony Cragg has lived and worked since 1977 in Germany, in Wuppertal. His studio is located here and not far away is the Skulpturenpark Waldfrieden, a vibrant exhibition center dedicated to contemporary sculpture, which he started in 2008. Active on the art scene since the late 1970s, Cragg now has dozens of exhibitions in galleries, museums, and parks around the world to his credit, as well as participation in major contemporary art festivals such as Documenta or the Venice Biennale. For a long time he has combined artistic activity with teaching at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf and the Universität der Künste (UdK) in Berlin. He has received numerous awards and honors including the highly prestigious Turner Prize (1988), Shakespeare Prize (2001), and the Praemium Imperiale for Sculpture (2007).

For info: www.uffizi.it

Tony Cragg's monumental sculptures in the Boboli Gardens.

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