Tony Cragg " Figure out / Figure in " at the Louvre

As a counterpoint to the presentation at the Louvre of the first retrospective in France devoted to the Austrian sculptor Franz Xaver Messerschmidt (1736-1783), the museum plays host to a group of sculptures by the British contemporary artist Tony Cragg, displayed in the Cour Marly and the Cour Puget. In addition, a new sculpture by the artist, produced especially for this exhibition, features under I.M. Pei's pyramid.
A graduate of the Royal College of Art in London, Tony Cragg has lived and worked in Wuppertal, Germany since 1977. Cragg has explored a wide variety of types of practice in sculpture and has made vast contributions to contemporary debates on sculpture. While his early works in the 1970s were mostly created using recovered objects, in his later work Cragg has used more traditional materials, such as wood, bronze, steel and marble, continually renewing his repertoire of forms, reaching towards an abstract appreciation of the human body.

A day at the Louvre......

Figure out / Figure in

Versus, 2010

Red wood

Ferryman, 2010

Bronze

Ferryman, 2010

and

Sharing, 2005

Accurate Figure, 2010

Bronze

Manipulation, 2010

Bronze

Red figure, 2010

Wood

Untitled, 2010
Steel

Runner, 2009

Bronze

Elbow, 2008

Wood

All images courtesy Galerie Thaddaeus Ropac, Paris/Salzburg

Photographs by Charles Duprat

Tony Cragg "Figure out / Figure in" is currently on view at the Louvre
From January 28 to April 25, 2011