Exhibition Curated by Turner Prize Winner Tony Cragg, Blain|Southern gallery

One of the world’s most influential artists and living sculptors, Tony Cragg has represented Britain at the Venice Biennale, won the Turner prize, is a Royal Academician and CBE. Alongside Blain/Southern gallery, Cragg will curate an exhibition featuring works by German artists Mathias Lanfer, Gereon Lepper and Andreas Schmitten; all alumni of the prestigious Kunstakademie Dusseldorf.

The show will be on a large scale with physically impressive works and an immersive space in which people can experience contemporary art. The Kunstakademie is one of Europe’s foremost art school, a position it has maintained for two hundred years. Some of the biggest names in contemporary art have studied or taught there including; Andreas Gursky, Anselm Kiefer, Peter Doig, Joseph Beuys, Gerhard Richter and Cragg himself.

Cragg has dedicated himself to the development and celebration of contemporary sculptural practice, imparting his knowledge and experience through his professorship at the Dusseldorf Academy and providing a platform for experiencing his vision through the foundation and sculpture park he founded in western Germany. Indeed part of the reasoning behind the exhibition at Blain/Southern is to act as a gateway for British audiences to discover the finest German sculptors of today.

Cragg has notable experience working in curation; he has exhibited at the Louvre in Paris, the Scottish National Gallery in Edinburgh and the CAFA Museum in Beijing. The artist has also exhibited multiple examples of his work in outdoor spaces where his use of bronze, steel, stone, wood and glass blend immaculately into the landscape.

The Blain/Southern gallery was established in 2010 but has since gone on to become one of the most important features of the contemporary art scene in London. The founders, Harry Blain and Graham Southern, were the duo behind the Haunch of Venison gallery which they founded in 2002.

Blain and Southern sold Haunch of Venison to Christie’s International plc in 2007, during their tenure they built up an impressive international programme of artists, including Keith Tyson and Richer Long who have both formerly won the Turner prize. The gallery opened in October with Creation Condemned, an exhibition of new works by the British artist Mat Collishaw.

Andreas Schmitten, Gereon Lepper and Mathias Lanfer Curated by Tony Cragg, until 29 July, Blain/Southern galley, 4 Hanover Square London. For more information visit www.blainsouthern.com

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Credits
1. Gereon Lepper, Der Apparat fast unbewegt (c. 1992). Courtesy the artist and Blain|Southern gallery.