Tony Cragg Waldzimmer

Tony Cragg (*1949) says that the objects that we produce in our society are usually made up of very basic geometric forms, such as areas, right angles, simple curves, circles. We use these to construct a utilitarian world that is defined by its relative simplicity and lack of variety in shape. However, in the material we see “only the tip of the iceberg. We find ourselves between the moment where we have a solved, boring, and familiar form, which does not challenge us much, and the possibility that the material becomes very complex 

and almost chaotic. … A square meter of forest floor has more forms than in the whole city here.“¹ 

Waldzimmer reveals Tony Cragg’s interest in the natural world with its complex organic shapes on the one hand, and technology, science and abstraction on the other. Views of a dense forest have been captured on paper in multiple transparent colours in several layers using limestone printing. The motifs are based on a binary system using the two digits one and zero.   

Although best known for his sculptures, Tony Cragg also regularly produces drawings and prints. In the late 1980s and early 1990s he created his first print portfolios, including works such as Laboratory Still Life (aquatint, 1988), Fruit Juice Bottles (aquatint, 1990), Die 1. Ära (etching, 1991). Waldzimmer is the largest and most complex lithographic portfolio to date.  

¹ A conversation between Tony Cragg and Buchmann Galerie Berlin, 2011, p. 42