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RARE EARTH

Tony Cragg

2023-10-26
2024-02-25
Curatorship: Emília Ferreira

Rare Earth

October 26, 2023 – February 25, 2024

Curator: Emília Ferreira

Tony Cragg (Liverpool, 1949) is one of the most analytical, playful, persistent and innovative sculptors of the last 50 years. Based in Wuppertal, Germany, since 1977, he has a studio there and established the basis of his international career that spans between drawing and sculpture, with several public works around the world. 

Rare Earth exhibition, by Tony Cragg, brings, for the first time, to Lisbon, a significant set of around 5 dozen works by the artist, including sculpture and drawing, from 1979 to 2023, in a revealing perspective of his work.  In addition to the sculptures and drawings on display at the National Museum of Contemporary Art from October 26, 2023 to February 25, 2024, the dialogue with the works also extends to the public space, in an unprecedented partnership between MNAC and Lisbon City Council. 

The published catalog (bilingual Portuguese/English) will feature a curatorial text by the director of MNAC and an interview carried out by the specialist connoisseur of Tony Cragg's work, Jon Wood. 

Tony Cragg, one of the most analytical, playful, persistent and innovative sculptors of the last 50 years, understands the artistic discipline he has practiced for half a century, defining it as a rare material: the pincer of the soul with which the poet chooses the word and the The sculptor analyzes, redefines and reorganizes the form and its intrinsic energy, taking himself, and taking us with him, to unsuspected places, new landscapes, populated by new beings and new ways of relating ourselves to the world around us . 

This exhibition brings, for the first time, to Lisbon, a significant set of sculpture and drawing works by Tony Cragg, from 1979 to 2023, in a perspective revealing the seduction that the visible and, in particular, the invisible — subcutaneous, structural, cellular or monadic — has exercised in this “radical materialist”, as he defines himself.  

Emília Ferreira (From the catalog text)

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