Tony Cragg. Endless forms most beautiful

Among the leading figures in contemporary sculpture, Tony Cragg is known for experimenting since the 1970s with the search for surprising forms and the use of novel techniques and materials. His artistic research has always focused on the endless possibilities of drawing and sculpture, in an unrelenting confrontation with nature, its creative processes and evolutionary structures.

Although rooted in the present, his works manage to enter admirably into harmony with the environments that welcome them: this is also the case for the majestic Halls of the Baths of Diocletian, chosen to house 18 sculptures in bronze, wood, travertine, fiberglass and steel, created over the past two decades by the British artist. Their seductive and mysterious forms, of varying sizes, refer to the mineral and plant world, geology and biology, evoking sea waves, shells and plant structures, and dialoguing with the archaeological spaces of the monumental complex.

The title of the exhibition comes from a statement by Charles Darwin and emphasizes the artist’s amazement and wonder at the richness of the architecture of life. These emotions are returned to the viewer through complex structures, on the border between abstraction and figuration, that test physical and structural limits, trying to resolve the relationship between matter and technique, between emptiness and fullness, between instability and balance in an experience that involves the senses and imagination, thought and sight.

Thanks to the collaboration with Municipio I Roma Centro, in addition to occupying the spaces of the museum, Cragg’s works also reach some places in the center of Rome in an extraordinary fusion of contemporary art and historical urban context.