This article was published on the Design attachment, on newsstands with Vanity Fair until 21 June 2022.
A mental effort, because you are aware that you are looking at a form which, however, has no form. It is not a tree, it is not the silhouette of a person, it is not a house, nor an animal: its sculptures take the form of the passing wind, of energy, of thoughts. They resemble something that is not there, but that is felt. And that’s exactly what he wants Tony Cragg, what made him famous throughout the world. His works, so material and often large, represent nothing known, if not what everyone wants to see us.
To make them, over the years, he has used stone, wood, plastic and now also glass, so much so that at the Murano Glass Museum, until 21 August 2022, a solo show has been set up: it is entitled Silicon Dioxide and collects forty works, in an interesting evolution, from large glass assemblies to new creations recently completed. «This exhibition is the result of a ten-year collaboration with the Berengo Foundation. It is the first major exhibition that I do dedicated to glass: I did one in Germany years ago, but this is something else, much more complete and extensive ».
What was it like working with glass?
«Very fascinating, especially for me who am a sculptor who does not copy nature: I am not interested in making horses out of bronze or human figures out of stone. The specificity of matter fascinates me, I like to understand what you can do with it, how you can manage to express ideas and reach emotions, working on the chemistry and physics of matter. Glass is liquid and when it is melted it can be manipulated and allows you to create pure geometries. When it is hot and viscous you can play on an incredible extent of the surfaces. At first I mostly did assemblies and mergers, then I started working with blown glass and I realized its incredible potential ».
But, precisely because the glass has a consistency that changes and that can be radically modified, when you understand that it’s okay, that the work is finished?
«In the meantime, the dialogue between the artist and the craftsman who blows glass is fundamental: glass is workable for a certain time, then it becomes late because it hardens. Its shape is transformed, it goes beyond itself to become something else. Then there is all the skill of the craftsman to maneuver, at high temperatures, something that weighs 20 kilos or more. It is truly amazing. I don’t know how to blow glass: what I do is show my drawings to the artisans, trying to explain what I would like. Then you work, you do, you create, you look and in case you do it again. It’s like leaving on a journey without a destination: you don’t really know where you are going but suddenly you arrive at a place and you know that it is the place you wanted to arrive ».
Source: Vanity Fair
