Research Statement

This research is focused on Tony Cragg, a British sculptor born in Liverpool and his incredibly unusual abstract works. He was born in 1949, so he is currently in his early 60s and still actively making sculptures. He first studied art on the foundation course at the Gloucestershire College of Art and Design, Cheltenham and then at the Wimbledon School of Art. During that period he was taught by Roger Ackling, who is also a sculptor that makes fascinating abstract sculptures that share a common style. Roger Acking introduced Cragg to Richard Long and Bill Woodrow, who are also advanced sculptors.

He has been influenced and motivated by these sculptors but managed to create an entirely different style than the ones he has been exposed to. His style of sculpture has a touch of classical and modernism, making it unique and have a completely different appeal than what sculpture is usually seen as. Cragg is very visual, he looks in depth at everything and from that brings his inspiration for his sculptures. His works start off as simple preliminary drawings, and through that he figures out the design to make the real project.

In Craggs’ early years he made sculptures using simple techniques such as stacking, splitting, and crushing. In 1978 he collected discarded plastic fragments and arranged them into color categories. Shortly after this he made works on the floor and wall reliefs, which formed images. Then his style switched over to being more modernized in his recent works, but they all still has a distinctive look to it that doesn’t completely categorize it in just the modern. The basis of his work was mainly through abstract observation, to simplify the images that he was seeing to their very basic structure and function.

He uses a variety of different materials which consist of stone, clay, bronze, glass, different synthetic materials like polystyrene, carbon- or glass-fiber. His sensitivity to different materials is and has been the starting point for his work. To a great extent, his choice of material has determined the form, which a sculpture has taken on. I discovered that the material he has chosen for his works gives a wonderful sense of texture that defines the form Cragg is trying to depict very well. The material of his sculptures also exhorts an emotion that is expressed randomly when viewed at different angles.

The focus of my research is getting to understand what Craggs style of sculpture really is in the perspective of the art world. Many people fail to see the true value of abstract art and sculpture simply because it doesn’t have that illusionary effect or that it isn’t recognizable as anything we see in reality. Unfortunately I was one of them. I’ve been pushing my artistic abilities to get the realism I see in life into my artworks, and when I saw abstract sculptures or abstract art work in general it angered me. I didn’t like knowing that these people made something so simple and that is fascinating many people when I bang my head on the desk to make the most complicated thing I can see look like a photograph or a real figure in all its presences just to receive the same or less amount of appreciation. However this ignorance isn’t what should be defining ‘Art’. Art is what people see and how they see it, weather it is something recognizable or not and that is what I aim to present in my research.

             In conclusion, I’ve had an entirely different understanding of art and all its forms through my researching, and I can say with full confidence that I’ve made an incredible discovery in recognizing and appreciating them. It opened a whole new door for me and my work and I feel a great amount of influence from viewing abstract work now than I ever did in the past. I do believe that Tony Craggs artwork has intrigued me especially because there is some complexities present even in his modern sculptures that exhibit basic shapes and that was what lured me to his ever so varied works. Some of his works I did recognize as him trying to be illusionistic much to my understanding. But since he is an artist of many talents, I stumbled across his not so complex abstract works and I was amazed at what I could see after being able to understand his sculptures. I could see what he saw when he was making them, and I want to thank him for being an enormous inspiration of the abstract style and making me see what art can really be.

Cubist Sculpture

Cubist sculpture is a style developed in parallel with cubist painting, centered in Paris, beginning around 1909 and evolving through the early 1920s.

The style is most closely associated with the formal experiments of Georges Braque and Pablo Picasso. Some sources name Picasso's 1909 bronze Head of a Woman as the first cubist sculpture, although art historian Douglas Cooper credits the Czech sculptor Otto Gutfreund (1889–1927).

In either case, others were very quick to follow Braque and Picasso's lead in Paris, artists like Raymond Duchamp-Villon (1876-1918), whose career was cut short by his death in military service, and Alexander Archipenko, who'd arrived in Paris in 1908 and whose 1912 Walking Woman is cited as the first modern sculpture with an abstracted void, i.e., a hole in the middle.

Just as in cubist painting, the style is rooted in Paul Cézanne's reduction of painted objects into component planes and geometric solids (cubes, spheres, cylinders, and cones). According to Herbert Read, this has the effect of "revealing the structure" of the object, or of presenting fragments and facets of the object to be visually interpreted in different ways. Both of these effects transfer to sculpture. The distinction between "analytic cubism" and "synthetic cubism" also holds true in sculpture. "In the analytical Cubism of Picasso and Braque, the definite purpose of the geometricization of the planes is to emphasize the formal structure of the motif represented. In the synthetic Cubism of Juan Gris the definite purpose is to create an effective formal pattern, geometricization being a means to this end." 

By the early 1920s, significant Cubist sculpture had been done in Sweden (by sculptor Bror Hjorth), in Prague (by Gutfreund and his collaborator Emil Filla), and at least two dedicated "Cubo-Futurist" sculptors were on staff at the Soviet art school Vkhutemas in Moscow (Boris Korolev and Vera Mukhina). Other significant cubist sculptors include Jacques Lipchitz and Henri Laurens.

The movement had run its course by about 1925, but cubist approaches to sculpture didn't end as much as they became a pervasive influence, fundamental to the related developments of Constructivism and Futurism.

Reference:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubist_sculpture
http://www.flickriver.com/photos/tags/albertogiacometti/interesting/

Modernism

Modernist sculpture movements include Cubism, Geometric abstraction, De Stijl, Suprematism, Constructivism, Dadaism, Surrealism, Futurism, Formalism Abstract expressionism, Pop-Art, Minimalism, Land art, and Installation art among others

In the early days of the 20th century, Pablo Picasso revolutionized the art of sculpture when he began creating his constructions fashioned by combining disparate objects and materials into one constructed piece of sculpture. Picasso reinvented the art of sculpture with his innovative use of constructing a work in three dimensions with disparate material. Just as collage was a radical development in two dimensional art; so was construction a radical development in three dimensional sculpture. The advent of Surrealism led to things occasionally being described as "sculpture" that would not have been so previously, such as "involuntary sculpture" in several senses, including coulage. In later years Pablo Picasso became a prolific ceramicist and potter, revolutionizing the way Ceramic art is perceived. George E. Ohr and more contemporary sculptors like Peter Voulkos, Kenneth Price, Robert Arneson, and George Segal and others have effectively used ceramics as an important integral medium for their work.

Similarly, the work of Constantin Brâncuşi at the beginning of the century paved the way for later abstract sculpture. In revolt against the naturalism of Rodin and his late 19th century contemporaries, Brâncuşi distilled subjects down to their essences as illustrated by his Bird in Space (1924) series. These elegantly refined forms became synonymous with 20th century sculpture. In 1927, Brâncuşi won a lawsuit against the U.S. customs authorities who attempted to value his sculpture as raw metal. The suit led to legal changes permitting the importation of abstract art free of duty.

Brâncuşi's impact, with his vocabulary of reduction and abstraction, is seen throughout the 1930s and 1940s, and exemplified by artists such as Gaston Lachaise, Sir Jacob Epstein, Henry Moore, Alberto Giacometti, Joan Miró, Julio González, Pablo Serrano, Jacques Lipchitz and later in the century by Carl Andre and John Safer who added motion and monumentality to the theme of purity of line.

Since the 1950s Modernist trends in sculpture both abstract and figurative have dominated the public imagination and the popularity of Modernist sculpture had sidelined the traditional approach. Picasso was commissioned to make a maquette for a huge 50-foot (15 m)-high public sculpture to be built in Chicago, known usually as the Chicago Picasso. He approached the project with a great deal of enthusiasm, designing a sculpture which was ambiguous and somewhat controversial. What the figure represents is not known; it could be a bird, a horse, a woman or a totally abstract shape. The sculpture, one of the most recognizable landmarks in downtown Chicago, was unveiled in 1967. Picasso refused to be paid $100,000 for it, donating it to the people of the city.

During the late 1950s and the 1960s abstract sculptors began experimenting with a wide array of new materials and different approaches to creating their work. Surrealist imagery, anthropomorphic abstraction, new materials and combinations of new energy sources and varied surfaces and objects became characteristic of much new modernist sculpture. Collaborative projects with landscape designers, architects, and landscape architects expanded the outdoor site and contextual integration.

Artists such as Isamu Noguchi, David Smith, Alexander Calder, Jean Tinguely, Richard Lippold, George Rickey, Louise Bourgeois, and Louise Nevelson came to characterize the look of modern sculpture, and the Minimalist works by Tony Smith, Robert Morris, Donald Judd, Larry Bell, Anne Truitt, Giacomo Benevelli, Arnaldo Pomodoro, Richard Serra, Dan Flavin, and others led contemporary abstract sculpture in new directions.

By the 1960s Abstract expressionism, Geometric abstraction and Minimalism predominated. Some works of the period are: the Cubi works of David Smith, and the welded steel works of Sir Anthony Caro, the large scale work of John Chamberlain, and environmental installation scale works by Mark di Suvero.

During the 1960s and 1970s figurative sculpture by modernist artists in stylized forms by artists such as: Leonard Baskin, Ernest Trova, Marisol Escobar, Paul Thek, and Manuel Neri became popular. In the 1980s several artists, among others, exploring figurative sculpture were Robert Graham in a classic articulated style and Fernando Botero bringing his painting's 'oversized figures' into monumental sculptures.

Reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sculpture

Materials of sculpture through history

The materials used in sculpture are diverse, changing throughout history. Sculptors have generally sought to produce works of art that are as permanent as possible, working in durable and frequently expensive materials such as bronze and stone: marble, limestone, porphyry, and granite. More rarely, precious materials such as gold, silver, jade, and ivory were used for chryselephantine works. More common and less expensive materials were used for sculpture for wider consumption, including glass, hardwoods (such as oak, box/boxwood, and lime/linden); terracotta and other ceramics, and cast metals such as pewter and zinc (spelter).

Sculptures are often painted, but commonly lose their paint to time, or restorers. Many different painting techniques have been used in making sculpture, including tempera, [oil painting], gilding, house paint, aerosol, enamel and sandblasting.

Many sculptors seek new ways and materials to make art. One of Pablo Picasso's most famous sculptures included bicycle parts. Alexander Calder and other modernists made spectacular use of painted steel. Since the 1960s, acrylics and other plastics have been used as well. Andy Goldsworthy makes his unusually ephemeral sculptures from almost entirely natural materials in natural settings. Some sculpture, such as ice sculpture, sand sculpture, and gas sculpture, is deliberately short-lived. A vast array of sculptors including Joan Miró, Marcel Duchamp, Yves Klein, John Chamberlain, Jean Tinguely, Richard Stankiewicz, Larry Bell, Carl Andre, Louise Bourgeois and others used glass, stained glass, automobile parts, tools, machine parts, and hardware to fashion their works.

Reference:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sculpture

Preliminary Drawings

A  complete  set  of  project  drawings  consists  of general  drawings,  detail  drawings,  assembly  drawings, and   always   a   bill   of   materials. GENERAL DRAWINGS consist of “plans” (views from above) and elevations  (side  or  front  views)  drawn  on  a  relatively small  defined  scale,  such  as  1/8  in.  =  1  ft  or 1/4 in. =  1 ft. Most of the general drawings are drawn in  orthographic  projections,  though  sometimes  details may be shown in isometric or cavalier projections. A DETAIL DRAWING shows a particular item on a larger scale than that of the general drawing in which the item appears, or it may show an item too small to appear at all  on  a  general  drawing.  An  ASSEMBLY  DRAWING is either an exterior or a sectional view of an object showing  the  details  in  the  proper  relationship  to  one another. Usually, assembly drawings are drawn to a smaller scale than are detail drawings. This procedure provides a check on the accuracy of the design and detail  drawings  and  often  discloses  errors.

Depending  on  the  space  available  on  the  drafting sheet, you may incorporate the BILL OF MATERIALS in the drawing; otherwise, you are to list it on a separate sheet.  The  bill  of  materials  contains  a  list  of  the quantities,  types,  sizes,  and  units  of  the  materials required  to  construct  the  object  presented  in  the drawing. In  a  typical  military  construction,  working  (project) drawings  go  through  stages  of  review  and  evaluation for design and technical adequacy to ensure good quality, consistency,  and  cost  effectiveness  of  the  design.

Preliminary  drawings are the initial plans for projects prepared by the designer or architects and engineers  (A/E)  firm  during  the  early  planning  or promotional  stage  of  the  building  development.  They provide  a  means  of  communication  between  the designer and the user (customer). These drawings are NOT intended to be used for construction, but they are used for exploring design concepts, material selection, preliminary cost estimates, approval by the customer, and a basis for the preparation of finished working drawings.

 You  will  notice  that  most  of  the  design  work incorporated  into  the  preliminary  drawings  at  the 35-percent stage of completion contain, as a minimum, the  following  information:  site  plans,  architectural floor  plans,  elevations,  building  sections,  preliminary finish  schedule  and  furniture  layouts,  interior  and exterior  mechanical  and  electrical  data,  and  civil  and structural  details.

Reference:

http://www.tpub.com/content/engineering/14069/css/14069_322.htm

Cragg on Euromaxx

References:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5XzN0cKNA2Y

Nasher Sculpture Center

Reference:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gRCAQ_8srhc&feature=related