Points of View

Tony Cragg: Points of View, 2022

At the entrance to the town center, between the bus station and Monheimer Tor, we are greeted by the impressive ensemble of sculptures entitled “Points of View” by Tony Cragg.

The three bronze columns designed for Monheim am Rhein each stand around five and a half meters high and project upwards. They are not straight, but widen and taper in all directions. The forms appear fluid and yet as if frozen in motion. At the same time, the constantly changing environment is reflected in the shimmering bronze. Through their moving surface and the dynamic form, the columns seem to dance before our eyes, yet it is we who are moving. Seen from ever new angles, familiar forms repeatedly appear in the contours of the columns: faces in profile that arise and pass in our eye as in an ambiguous image. Tony Cragg is a master when it comes to playing with the contrast of the static and the dynamic, of abstract forms that, at the same time, have representational, often almost human-looking features.

"To decide on the form and structure of many things, we will need the concept of sculpture and sculptural thinking. I would like to apply sculptural thinking to biomechanics, to government institutions, social structures and so on." - Tony Cragg

Artist biography Sir Anthony „Tony“ Douglas Cragg

born in 1949 in Liverpool, Great Britain
1969–1977 Studies at the Gloucestershire College of Art, Cheltenham, the Wimbeldon College of Art, London and the Royal College of Art, London
1976 Professor at the Ecole des Beaux Arts de Metz, France
1977 Relocation to Wuppertal
1988 British Pavilion at the 43rd Venice Biennale
1988 Professor at the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf
1996 Member of the Royal Academy
2009–2013 Director of the Kunstakademie Düsseldorf

Exhibitions (Auswahl)
Since the 1970s, Tony Cragg's work has been featured in numerous exhibitions. Significant solo exhibitions and retrospectives in more recent years include:

2009 Tony Cragg – Second Nature, Staatliche Kunsthalle Karlsruhe; Bronzeskulpturen, Museum der Moderne Salzburg
2011 Tony Cragg: Sculptures and Drawings. Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh, Scotland
2011 Tony Cragg – Figure out / Figure in, Louvre, Paris, France; Museum Küppersmühle für Moderne Kunst, Duisburg, titled: Dinge im Kopf
2016 Parts of the World, retrospective, Von der Heydt-Museum, Wuppertal
2016/17 Tony Cragg. Unnatural Selection, Hessisches Landesmuseum Darmstadt
2017 Tony Cragg: Esculturas y Dibujos, Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes in Havanna, Cuba; Museum Ludwig Koblenz, titled: Tony Cragg. Sculptures and Works on Paper
2022 Tony Cragg – Sculpture: Body and Soul, Albertina, Wien

Prizes and awards (selection)
1988 Turner Prize
2001 Shakespeare Prize
2007 Praemium Imperiale (World Culture Prize of the Japanese Imperial Family)
2012 Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany
2016 Appointed Knight Bachelor

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