Tony Cragg is one of the most influential sculptors of his generation. In the 1980s, he was already one of the most prominent representatives of “New British Sculpture,” representing the United Kingdom at the Venice Biennale in 1988, receiving the prestigious Turner Prize, and exhibiting at documenta 7 and 8 in Kassel. His more recent works are on display in many public spaces around the world, and they're part of major museum collections, including the Centre Pompidou in Paris, the Museum of Fine Arts in Boston, and the Museum of Contemporary Art (MOCA) in Los Angeles.

Over the course of his almost 50-year career, the artist has created entirely new and fascinating forms, some of them monumental in size. He has created an oeuvre in a sculptural style that is uniquely his own, ranging from radical abstraction to biomorphic structures, organically grown forms, and figurative associations.
With the materials he uses, the artist often explores the limits of statics and devises sculptural forms that do not yet exist in the real world: "Sculpture is an enormously dynamic and dramatically developing discipline, and it’s one of the only uses of material that isn’t utilitarian. It’s just about new forms. New ideas and new emotional experiences. When you see how ugly everything is built: Simple geometries, flat straight edges, boring right angles, a repetitive and inferior world we build in a sense. Sculpture is one of the only things that builds something crazy and interesting." (Tony Cragg in einem Interview mit Kate Kellaway, "I’m most interested in the emotional qualities of things," in: The Guardian, 15.3.2017)

The present “Mental Picture” shape consists of two horizontal elements, suggesting interwoven and interrelated trains of thought. The extensive work touches the floor at only a few tiny spots, and its narrow openings draw the surrounding space directly into the composition. The result is a rhythmic and dynamic symbiosis of solid material and an elegant form that evokes an astonishing lightness. [CH]