Tony Cragg explores the great outdoors with a major show at Goodwood. Sam Phillips reports
Cass Sculpture Foundation stages the country's largest ever outdoor exhibition of work by Tony Cragg RA this summer in what can be seen as a coming of age for the Sussex based sculpture park on its tenth birthday. The foundation commissions work from Britain's best sculptors for display in its enclave on the idyllic Goodwood estate, including Anthony Caro, Bill Woodrow and Andy Goldsworthy. All profits from the sales of the work are ploughed into further commissions. 'It's a living museum for British sculpture,' enthuses Wilfred Cass, the foundation's charismatic director.
Now over twelve of Cragg's seductive, biomorphic forms stand proud in the Chalk Pit, a newly landscaped space dedicated to solo shows of sculpture. Cragg's pieces pulsate with restless energy while the white chalk walls and trimmed grass banks allow the sculpture to do all the talking. 'I like my work to be in an environment where it can be viewed on its own terms, not to be poking out from behind trees,' says Cragg. The artist has pushed the traditional outdoor materials of bronze, steel and stone to their limits for the show, using complex processes in the studio 'to make the materials sing new songs'.
Article by Sam Phillips, first published in the Summer 2005 edition of The Royal Adademy of Arts Magazine. Photography by Leon Chew.
