Boy

“There are many more things that don’t exist than those that do exist,” Tony Cragg once said. In keeping with this train of thought, the artist has set about filling some of this immense gap with his works. These are things that exist but have not existed before, that cannot be identified, that do not seem entirely of this world both in shape and materiality. This also applies to “Boy” which, compared to the often sweeping and elegant forms created by Cragg, seems to have hit the ground rather awkwardly. A horizontal pipe, open at one end, it evokes somewhat unpleasant associations somewhere between dog excrement, mushrooms, and giant condoms, compounded by the dull brown colour of the indefinable material. Others see a walrus, some alien offspring, or a huge baby bottle cap. In any case, the sculpture sparks the recipients’ imagination and demonstrates that there are different forms of aesthetics, including the fascinating power of the enigmatic, non-functional, multi-layered, and ambiguous.
A relative of this sculpture in Barmenia Park, a small, publicly accessible sculpture park near the insurance company’s headquarters, is owned by the E.ON energy provider and on display at their Essen headquarters, also under the title “Boy.”

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