Exhibitions Huon Mallalieu
Yorkshire Sculpture Park, Wakefield, to 5th March TONY CRAGG 4th March to 3rd September
Three of this month’s offerings have strong Near and Middle Eastern connections, and it is good to be reminded that creativity may still flourish amid horror and chaos. For Beyond
Boundaries artists from across the region for whom travel was difficult or impossible, were invited to submit artwork via email, thus it is of necessity largely a photographic exercise.
However, some of the 16 selected by the international art bridge-building organisation Artrole and the YSP sent directions for performances, and one, the Iranian Sahand Hesamiyan, the instructions for a sculpture that was printed in 3D during the exhibition. A statement by Zardasht Osman, an Iraqi Kurd documentary photographer, is worth pondering: ‘Deciding to live freely like a Westerner needs sacrifices. To know the meaning of freedom is to know the limits of it, and the boundaries of it should not be crossed. Life is tied with freedom, if we don’t have freedom, we don’t have life either.’
When Tony Cragg made his name in the 1970s it was as an outsider. His move to Germany at the end of that decade meant that Gormley and Kapoor took the limelight at home, but allowed him to build an international reputation. Recently, he has been honoured at home as well as abroad, and his knighthood came last year. His work has developed away from the foraged materials, such as brightly coloured plastics, for which he was known, to harder, more traditional wood and even bronze. This show of new sculptures, and drawings and works from nearly five decades, is shown in both the Underground Gallery and outside.