Anthony Cragg

“Pair is a sculpture that is simple and complex at the same time. Its composition from stacked discs is easy to recognize, but its optical effect always remains challenging and surprising. It has motion within it and demands movement also from the viewer. Only when one has circled the sculpture and shifted one’s standpoint does one experience the visual richness of the sculpture. It can be experienced as a pair of contrasting figures in which, as one views and walks around it, different faces appear and then disappear again. The presence of persons is evoked and simultaneously revealed as illusory. The experience of the sculpture results in a contradictory, extremely stimulating mixture of fascination and disillusionment. How does the pair relate to each other? How does it relate to the viewer? How many persons are to be found in the sculpture? Of course, the sculpture provides no clear answer, but it spurs the viewer again and again to look closely and let himself or herself be surprised. The liveliness of the sculpture increases our attention, and one need not expect much more from a compelling work of art.” Kay Heymer (excerpt from “Anthony Cragg, Pair 2015. Eine Umkreisung”, publication for the exhibition).

Anthony Cragg's project was generously funded by the Kultur- und Umweltstiftung der Kreissparkasse Köln.