Tony Cragg
(British, b. 1949)

By salvaging discarded objects and transforming them into surprising creations, Tony Cragg makes viewers more aware of the manufactured objects that increasingly make up our world.

About the artist

Tony Cragg Photo by Antje Zeis-Loi, 1990 Courtesy Marian Goodman Gallery, New York

British artist Tony Cragg was born in 1949 in Liverpool, England. He was educated in the British school system and received his MFA from London’s Royal College of Art in 1977. He then settled in the German city of Wuppertal, where he began to create artwork from materials ranging from plastic waste and pottery fragments to the more traditional carved wood and bronze. Most of Cragg’s artworks from the 1970s and 1980s consist primarily of found objects. The artist’s hand is rarely evident in his early sculptures and “drawings.” These artworks are incredibly tactile due to his interest in creating unlikely and varied surface treatments for his sculptures—from colorful plastic chips and dice to metal hooks and wooden knobs. Now an internationally renowned artist, Cragg is considered to be one of the most important and influential British sculptors since Henry Moore (1898–1986). He was commissioned to do several prominent public sculptures for the 1996 Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia, and for New York’s Battery Park.

Red Bottle, 1982

Red Bottle, 1982 Plastic objects 108 x 33 x 3 in. Gerald S. Elliott Collection 1995.33

In the early 1980s, Cragg began to transform found manufactured materials (namely plastic refuse) into mosaic sculptures on floors or walls. These sculptures, or “drawings” as he prefers them to be called, began with Cragg salvaging plastic products o¤ the beach in Sussex, England. He then divided and organized the plastic waste into groups according to color. After he selected one of the objects in a certain color-coded group, Cragg arranged the rest of the similarly colored plastic products into the selected object’s silhouette.

In Red Bottle, Cragg brings together red plastic found refuse in the shape of a bottle—one of the objects included in the “drawing.” Objects as varied as a cigarette lighter, a wrench, shopping bag handles, a toothbrush, a Lego block, and a shovel are all contained within the outline of the bottle. Besides their placement within this wall mosaic, these seemingly disparate plastic items are also linked together by their color.

Cragg’s use of discarded plastic gives the unwanted refuse new life. As such, viewers are compelled to reconsider utilitarian, manufactured products as art objects. Giving garbage new meaning and value also reveals Cragg’s concern for the polluted state of our natural environment. By salvaging waste objects and transforming them into surprising creations, Cragg makes viewers more aware of the manufactured things that increasingly make up our world.

Ideas for activities
Art
Divide the class into a variety of “color” groups (e.g., red, green, blue, yellow, etc.)
Have students collect objects (in their color group) that have been thrown away.
Have each color group select one of the objects in their collection, create a large silhouette of it on butcher paper, and then place and attach the remaining color-coded objects within it.

Language arts
Students should select one of the objects from Red Bottle. All the objects were found on the beach—either forgotten by beachgoers, washed up by the sea, or improperly disposed of.
Have students write a story from the point of view of an object. Students should be sure to include insightful information about their object’s origin, demise, and current role in Red Bottle.
Have students read their stories aloud to the class to see if the rest of the class can guess their object’s identity.

Science
Consider the life cycle of one of the objects in the artwork. Is the life of an object over when it is thrown away? Research some recycled products and trace them back to their source material.


Questions for looking and discussion

Additional work by Tony Cragg