Tokyo - Wuppertal 東京 — ヴッパータール

In a move to correct the extreme focus on the formative elements in sculpture, a new kind of works that have a theme and present some image started to emerge in Britain over the late 1970s and the 1980s. They comprise the British New Sculpture, and Tony Cragg is an artist to represent this movement. Cragg, who originally wanted to become a scientist, started as an artist under the influences of Minimal Art and Conceptual Art. In the late 1970s, he began producing works made of bright-colored pieces of plastic trash arranged on the floor or the wall to form a representational image, such as a human figure, an airplane, a submarine, or a container. This work was created by the artist for the 1982 exhibition "Aspects of British Art Today" (Tokyo Metropolitan Art Museum and other venues) with pieces of trash he himself picked up in Tokyo, and portrays Cragg himself as he makes an international phone call from Tokyo to his home in Germany. Presented here is an ironic viewpoint that considers the plastic trash produced by the mass-consumption civilization as a new natural environment for today's city dwellers.