Lisson Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new work by Tony Cragg, centred on the latest in his series of Incident sculptures, alongside recent pieces from related, ongoing bodies of work. The show revolves around numerous upright forms that resemble standing figures or columnar pillars, but which are abstracted and complicated through Cragg's rigorous process of hand carving – whether through the act of building up and constructing or through careful erosion and hollowing out. The porosity and openness of these new Incident works collapse any boundaries between internal and external structure, between solid and air, creating sculptural moments that are at once transitory and eternal, organic and deliberate. A further dimension to these animated and gestural configurations – which seem to dance and commune with one another as though being drawn in space – is their hard-edged materiality, being variously manufactured from patinated bronze, reflective stainless steel or the velveteen surface of weathered Corten steel.
For over 50 years, Cragg has fostered a practice combining his interests in the natural and the manmade worlds that has nevertheless remained resolutely a product of his own invention, experimentation and imagination. The work entitled Path, a new 2025 iteration of his earlier Hedge series, only fleetingly recalls the twists and twines of the hedgerows he investigated as a child, before exploding out and growing into interweaving planes and sinuous lines. Cragg's newest work in the REM series, composed of stacked stainless-steel forms inspired by ancient headrests carved from tree branches, invoke the sense of dream and play in highly polished, repeating patterns.
Across his oeuvre, Cragg's focus remains on the expressive possibilities of materials rather on than any direct representation, harnessing instead the possibilities of movement, mass and molecular arrangement that are inherent in all matter. The recent Stand works in this show can initially be read anthropomorphically – as torso-like volumes with heads or limbs, attuned to the human, not only in scale and material presence but also in the way they invite a physical, almost empathic response from viewers – but soon transcend memory and dissolve perception, developing instead into original forms with fresh associations, both bodily and other worldly.
This dialogue between the figurative and volumetric qualities in the Stand series continues outside, where monumental outdoor versions are installed side-by-side in the external courtyard. At the heart of the exhibition, the internal courtyard contains Contradiction, a major green outdoor work in bronze that rotates between a whirling, centrifugal force and a towering verticality – seemingly defying gravity and pulling skywards.
Alongside an interconnectedness and shared complexity across all of Cragg's output, these works together present an artist who is not only continuing to evolve and enrich the range of thoughts, materials and forms involved in his creations, but also someone constantly pushing at the limits of what is possible to achieve in sculpture.
This exhibition follows major solo shows this year at leading European institutions in Dubrovnik, Dessau, Salzburg and Rome, as well as his last major display in the UK at Castle Howard, York (2024). It runs concurrently with a presentation at the artist's Sculpture Park Waldfrieden in Wuppertal (2025–26).
COPISTES
en collaboration exceptionnelle avec le musée du Louvre
Sous le commissariat de :
Donatien Grau, conseiller pour les programmes contemporains du musée du Louvre et Chiara Parisi, directrice du Centre Pompidou-Metz
avec les artistes :
Rita Ackermann, Valerio Adami, Georges Adéagbo, agnès b., Henni Alftan, Ghada Amer, Giulia Andreani, Lucas Arruda, Kader Attia, Brigitte Aubignac, Tauba Auerbach, Mathias Augustyniak, Rosa Barba, Miquel Barceló, Julien Bismuth, Michaël Borremans, Mohamed Bourouissa, Glenn Brown, Humberto Campana, Théo Casciani, Guglielmo Castelli, Ymane Chabi-Gara, Xinyi Cheng, Nina Childress, Gaëlle Choisne, Jean Claracq, Francesco Clemente, Robert Combas, Julien Creuzet, Enzo Cucchi, Neïla Czermak Ichti, Jean-Philippe Delhomme, Hélène Delprat, Damien Deroubaix, Mimosa Echard, Nicole Eisenman, Tim Eitel, Bracha L. Ettinger, Simone Fattal, Sidival Fila, Claire Fontaine, Cyprien Gaillard, Antony Gormley, Laurent Grasso, Dhewadi Hadjab, Camille Henrot, Nathanaëlle Herbelin, Thomas Hirschhorn, Carsten Höller, Iman Issa, Koo Jeong A, Y.Z. Kami, Jutta Koether, Jeff Koons, Bertrand Lavier, Lee Mingwei, Thomas Lévy-Lasne, Glenn Ligon, Nate Lowman, Victor Man, Takesada Matsutani, Paul McCarthy, Julie Mehretu, Paul Mignard, Jill Mulleady, Josèfa Ntjam, Laura Owens, Christodoulos Panayiotou, Ariana Papademetropoulos, Philippe Parreno, Nicolas Party, Nathalie du Pasquier, Bruno Perramant, Elizabeth Peyton, Martial Raysse, Andy Robert, Madeleine Roger-Lacan, George Rouy, Christine Safa, Anri Sala, Edgar Sarin, Ryoko Sekiguchi, Luigi Serafini, Elené Shatberashvili, Apolonia Sokol, Christiana Soulou, Claire Tabouret, Pol Taburet, Djamel Tatah, Agnès Thurnauer, Georges Tony Stoll, Fabienne Verdier, Francesco Vezzoli, Oriol Vilanova, Danh Vo, Anna Weyant, Chloe Wise, Yohji Yamamoto, Yan Pei-Ming avec Gérard Manset
L'exposition est présentée en Galerie 3
Adresse:
Centre Pompidou-Metz
1, Parvis des Droits de l'Homme
57020 Metz
France
L'exposition, ouverte depuis le 15 mars 2024, est gratuitement accessible.
Adresse:
Nationalmusée um Fëschmaart
Marché-aux-Poissons
L-2345 Luxembourg
Horaires:
Lundi: fermé
Mardi-mercredi: 10h - 18h
Jeudi: 10h - 20h
Vendredi-dimanche: 10h - 18h