Tony Cragg

Description

During a residency at the Henry Moore Studios at Dean Clough in Halifax in 1997, Tony Cragg was given space and time in which to develop ideas for new sculptures, without pressure for immediate results or for an exhibition. This unconditional generosity of the Henry Moore Sculpture Trust resulted in some remarkable sculptures modelled in clay and cast in plaster. Vessel forms, towering, one on top of the next, grew into columns as mysterious as any primitive totem. On drying, salts emerged from the pink plaster to form encrustations on the surface of the vessels, like so much hoar-frost.

Pillars of Salt, made especially for Sculpture at Goodwood, emerged from the ideas Cragg worked on at Dean Clough. As much as Trilobites 1989, which graced Goodwood during its first three years, Pillars of Salt speaks of evolution and of change - this time of change in mineral growth and change through time. These versions of laboratory vessels, placed in linear vertical formation, are disguised by their proximity; stacked and conjoined, they become something new.

The clustering of different forms, which by their association tell a new story, is familiar territory in Cragg's working practice. The move forward with Pillars of Salt is the formality with which the separate elements are brought together - no random virus this, but steady, geometric growth. The bronze surface is raw, left just as it emerged on cooling from the sand mould. Surface veins where the heat cracked the damp sand can be seen clearly, as can burnt parts where the molten metal reacted with the sand. The metal has been left to patinate itself through time, much as the plasters at Dean Clough were allowed to develop their salt patina when this series began.