Spyrogyra

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Spyrogyra

Artist Anthony Cragg (British, active Germany, born 1949)

Place of OriginWuppertal-Wichlinghausen, Germany

Date1996

DimensionsH: 96 in.; Diam. (bottom): 84 in.

MediumIron; machine-blown bottles, sandblasted; assembled

ClassificationGlass

Credit LineGift of Mr. and Mrs. Roy S. O'Connor

Object number

2015.39

Not on View

DescriptionThe iron structure consists of three parts, a bottom, middle and top component. The iron structure holds 211 glass bottles. The bottles are currently numbered 1-208, with there being an A & B component to numbers 52, 54, and 198 to reach the total of 211 bottles. The bottles arrived with blue tape attached indicating their numbers. These three numbers had two bottles with the same number, so they were assigned an A & B differentiation. The bottles are now tagged when not on view because numbering the physical bottles is not possible based on their orientation during installation.

Label TextSpyrogyra is named for a thread-like species of green algae, a type of thin seaweed with a spiral arrangement of the chloroplasts that populate its undulating structure. While the shape and structure of Tony Cragg’s sculpture also seems to reference French Dadaist Marcel Duchamp’s famous Bottle Rack from 1914, Cragg’s playful work draws inspiration from his observation that science ultimately provides neither the truth nor objectivity. The freedom to use any found material for the making of art, as claimed by Duchamp, is translated by Cragg into infinite possibilities for combining materials and processes in order to conjure new and provocative objects. Here, he uses mass-produced bottles that have been stripped of their original utility as commercial containers. They were selected to represent a diverse range of color and size, their surfaces changed through sand-blasting to gem-like translucent. [Image: m.duchamp, bottle rack.jpg.] Marcel Duchamp (French, 1887–1968), Bottle Rack, readymade bottle-dryer of galvanized iron, 1964 (replica of 1914 original).Exhibition HistoryStuttgart, Germany, Staatsgalerie, Tony Cragg: Spyrogyra, December 10, 1990-February 27, 2000.