Lisson Gallery is pleased to present a solo exhibition of new work by Tony Cragg, centred on the latest in his series of Incident sculptures, alongside recent pieces from related, ongoing bodies of work. The show revolves around numerous upright forms that resemble standing figures or columnar pillars, but which are abstracted and complicated through Cragg’s rigorous process of hand carving – whether through the act of building up and constructing or through careful erosion and hollowing out. The porosity and openness of these new Incident works collapse any boundaries between internal and external structure, between solid and air, creating sculptural moments that are at once transitory and eternal, organic and deliberate. A further dimension to these animated and gestural configurations – which seem to dance and commune with one another as though being drawn in space – is their hard-edged materiality, being variously manufactured from patinated bronze, reflective stainless steel or the velveteen surface of weathered corten steel.
Read moreFor over 50 years, Cragg has fostered a practice combining his interests in the natural and the manmade worlds that has nevertheless remained resolutely a product of his own invention, experimentation and imagination. A new 2025 iteration of his Hedge series, for example, only fleetingly recalls the twists and twines of the hedgerows he investigated as a child, before exploding out and growing into interweaving planes and sinuous lines. Similarly, the recent Stand works in this show can initially be read anthropomorphically – as torso-like volumes with heads or limbs – but soon transcend memory and dissolve perception, developing instead into original forms with fresh associations, both bodily and other worldly.
Cragg’s Masks, composed of stratified stone in circular or elliptical striations, lean toward a futuristic dynamism. Though abstracted from multiplied, compounded profiles of a person’s face, these works are still deeply attuned to the human, in scale, material presence and in the way they invite a physical, almost empathic response from viewers. Across his oeuvre, Cragg’s focus remains on the expressive possibilities of materials rather on than any direct representation, harnessing instead the possibilities of movement, mass and molecular arrangement that are inherent in all matter.
This dialogue between the figurative qualities in the Stands and Masks continues outdoors, where monumental outdoor versions of these two series are installed side-by-side in the external courtyard. At the heart of the exhibition, the internal courtyard features a major bronze Contradiction sculpture, which rotates between a whirling, centrifugal force and a towering verticality – seemingly defying gravity and pulling skywards.
Alongside an interconnectedness and shared complexity across all of Cragg’s output, these works together present an artist who is not only continuing to evolve and enrich the range of thoughts, materials and forms involved in his creations, but also someone constantly pushing at the limits of what is possible to achieve in sculpture.
This exhibition follows major solo shows this year at leading European institutions in Dubrovnik, Dessau, Salzburg and Rome, as well as his last major display in the UK at Castle Howard, York (2024). It runs concurrently with a presentation at the artist’s Sculpture Park Waldfrieden in Wuppertal (2025–26).
