A master of materials, sculptor Sir Tony Cragg (b. Liverpool, 1949) has challenged the physicality of artistic production since gaining international recognition in the 1980s (Lisson Gallery 2025). Going on to win the Turner Prize (1988) and receiving the Praemium Imperiale (2007), Cragg’s practice has evolved in complexity, scale and beauty without sacrificing the intellectual rigour that marked his earlier, more overtly conceptual works (Praemium Imperiale 2025).
Cragg’s sculpture has used the way in which we perceive materials as a source of formal interpretation: stone twisted in unusual ways, materials that suggest one thing but act as another, vehicles towards a new way of seeing. The results allow a new type of intimacy with an esteemed medium often dulled by familiarity. What new visions his latest works will reveal remains to be seen, understood and internalised.
Read Trebuchet interview with Tony Cragg here
Exhibition Notes: Tony Cragg: Ocean of Drops. May 5 – June 28, 2026
On the occasion of the 61st International Art Exhibition of La Biennale di Venezia, Fondazione Berengo and Berengo Studio present Ocean of Drops, a solo exhibition by Tony Cragg (Liverpool, 1949), one of the most influential voices in contemporary sculpture, on view at Ca’ Tron from May 5 to June 28, 2026.
Conceived around a monumental glass sculpture produced in Murano—which lends the exhibition its title—the project brings together a selection of recent large-scale works, offering a focused insight into the latest developments in Cragg’s practice.
Ocean of Drops unfolds as a field of tension between matter and perception. The central glass sculpture, both visual and conceptual fulcrum of the exhibition, evokes the intrinsic nature of materials, prompting a reflection on their internal structure and on the processes that determine form and appearance. Rather than representing, the work discover new forms that reflects on the continuous transformation of matter, while resisting fixed definition.
Alongside this central presence, the exhibition includes sculptures in wood and stone through which Cragg investigates the physical and dynamic properties of matter. These forms evoke fundamental structures—atoms, molecules, cells, particles—rendering visible what normally remains unseen, and probing the relationship between micro and macro, structure and surface.
The project as a whole is rooted in a broader inquiry into the relationship between the interior and exterior of matter. Cragg’s sculptures challenge the mechanisms through which we perceive the world, highlighting the limits of sensory experience and the decisive role of cognitive structures in shaping our understanding of reality. In this sense, Ocean of Drops operates as a critical device: an invitation to question not only what we see, but how we see.
Active since the early 1970s, Tony Cragg has exhibited in museums and institutions worldwide, establishing himself as a central figure in contemporary sculpture. The Venice exhibition offers a significant opportunity to engage with a practice that continues to redefine the relationship between form, material, and knowledge.
Tony Cragg, Oceans of Drops, May 5 – Jun 28, 2026
Ca’ Tron
Santa Croce 1957,Venezia
fondazioneberengo.org
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Images courtesy of fondazione berengo. Photography by © Michael Richter
The aim of art is to represent not the outward appearance of things, but their inward significance. – Aristotle
