Andy Goldsworthy Explained

Andy Goldsworthy
Partner:Tina Fiske
Birth Date:25 July 1956
Birth Place:Cheshire, England
Children:4
Spouse:Judith Gregson (divorced)
Field:Sculpture, photography
Movement:Environmental art, land art

Andy Goldsworthy (born 25 July 1956) is an English sculptor, photographer, and environmentalist who produces site-specific sculptures and land art situated in natural and urban settings.

Early life

Goldsworthy was born in Cheshire on 25 July 1956, the son of Muriel (née Stanger) and F. Allin Goldsworthy (1929–2001), a former professor of applied mathematics at the University of Leeds.[1] [2] He grew up on the Harrogate side of Leeds. From the age of 13, he worked on farms as a labourer. He has likened the repetitive quality of farm tasks to the routine of making sculpture: "A lot of my work is like picking potatoes; you have to get into the rhythm of it."[3] He studied fine art at Bradford College of Art from 1974 to 1975 and at Preston Polytechnic (now the University of Central Lancashire) from 1975 to 1978,[1] receiving his BA from the latter.

Career

History

After leaving college, Goldsworthy lived in Yorkshire, Lancashire, and Cumbria. He moved to Scotland in 1985, first living in Langholm and then settling a year later in Penpont, where he still resides. It has been said that his gradual drift northwards was "due to a way of life over which he did not have complete control", but that contributing factors were opportunities and desires to work in these areas and "reasons of economy".[4]

In 1993, Goldsworthy received an honorary degree from the University of Bradford. He was an A.D. White Professor-At-Large in Sculpture at Cornell University 2000–2006 and 2006–2008.[5]

In 2003,[6] Goldsworthy produced a commissioned work for the entry courtyard of San Francisco's de Young Museum called "Drawn Stone", which echoes San Francisco's frequent earthquakes and their effects. His installation included a giant crack in the pavement that broke off into smaller cracks, and broken limestone, which could be used for benches. The smaller cracks were made with a hammer adding unpredictability to the work as he created it.[7]

Art process

The materials used in Goldsworthy's art often include brightly coloured flowers, icicles, leaves, mud, pinecones, snow, stone, twigs, and thorns. He has been quoted as saying, "I think it's incredibly brave to be working with flowers and leaves and petals. But I have to: I can't edit the materials I work with. My remit is to work with nature as a whole."[8]

Rather than interfering in natural processes, his work magnifies existing ones through deliberately minimal intervention in the landscape. Goldsworthy has said “I am reluctant to carve into or break off solid living rock…I feel a difference between large, deep rooted stones and the debris lying at the foot of a cliff, pebbles on a beach…These are loose and unsettled, as if on a journey, and I can work with them in ways I couldn’t with a long resting stone.”[9] Goldsworthy’s commitment to working with available natural materials injects an inherent scarcity and contingency into the work.[10]

In contrast to other artists who work with the land, most of Goldsworthy’s works are small in scale and temporary in their installation. For these ephemeral works, Goldsworthy often uses only his bare hands, teeth, and found tools to prepare and arrange the materials. His process reveals a preoccupation with temporality and a specific attention to materials which visibly age and decay, a view which stands in contrast to monumentalism in Land Art.[11]

For his permanent sculptures like "Roof", "Stone River" and "Three Cairns", "Moonlit Path" (Petworth, West Sussex, 2002) and "Chalk Stones" in the South Downs, near West Dean, West Sussex he has employed the use of machine tools. To create "Roof", Goldsworthy worked with his assistant and five British dry-stone wallers, who were used to make sure the structure could withstand time and nature.

Goldsworthy is generally considered the founder of modern rock balancing.

Photography

Photography plays a crucial role in his art due to its often ephemeral and transient state. Photographs (made primarily by Goldsworthy himself) of site-specific, environmental works allow them to be shared without severing important ties to place.[12] According to Goldsworthy, "Each work grows, stays, decays – integral parts of a cycle which the photograph shows at its heights, marking the moment when the work is most alive. There is an intensity about a work at its peak that I hope is expressed in the image. Process and decay are implicit."[13]

Photography aids Goldsworthy in understanding his works, as much as in communicating them to an audience. He has said, “Photography is my way of talking, writing and thinking about my art. It makes me aware of connections and developments that might have not otherwise have been apparent. It is the visual evidence which runs through my art as a whole and gives me a broader, more distant view of what I am doing.”

Documentary films on Goldsworthy

Goldsworthy is the subject of a 2001 documentary feature film called Rivers and Tides, directed by German director Thomas Riedelsheimer.[14] In 2018, Riedelsheimer released a second documentary on Goldsworthy titled Leaning Into the Wind.[15]

Personal life

In 1982, Goldsworthy married Judith Gregson; they had four children together before separating. He now lives in the Scottish village of Penpont with his girlfriend, Tina Fiske, an art historian.[3]

Awards

Exhibitions and installations

width=25%Imagewidth=15%Dateswidth=30%Titlewidth=30%Location
1995–2008Sapsucker Cairn[16] Ithaca, New York, USA
1996–2003SheepfoldsCumbria, England, UK
1997Stone House[17] Herring Island, Victoria, Australia
1997CairnHerring Island, Victoria, Australia
1998Hutton RoofNational Museum of Scotland
Edinburgh, Scotland, UK
22 May –
15 November 2000		Andy Goldsworthy at Storm King Art Center[18]
(featuring the installation Storm King Wall)		Storm King Art Center
Mountainville, Cornwall, New York, USA
August 2001Stone River[19] Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University
Stanford, California, USA
2002Andy Goldsworthy Arch at Goodwood[20] Cass Sculpture Foundation
Goodwood, West Sussex, England, UK
2002 Chalk Stones TrailSouth Downs near West Dean, West Sussex
2002Three Cairns[21] Des Moines Art Center
Des Moines, IA USA
4 May –
31 October 2004		Andy Goldsworthy on the Roof[22] (featuring the installation Stone Houses)Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Metropolitan Museum of Art Roof Garden
New York City, USA
2005Andy Goldsworthy: Early Works
A national touring exhibition from the Haywood Gallery[23] 		England, United Kingdom
2005Drawn StoneM. H. de Young Memorial Museum
San Francisco
2005Arches[24] Gibbs Farm
New Zealand
22 January –
15 May 2005		The Andy Goldsworthy Project[25]
(including the installation Roof)[26] 		National Gallery of Art
National Mall, Washington, D.C., USA
2006Red sandstone wall at the Doerr-Hosier Center[27] Aspen Institute
Aspen, Colorado, USA
31 March 2007 –
6 January 2008		Hanging Trees[28] Yorkshire Sculpture Park
West Bretton, Wakefield, West Yorkshire, England, UK
2007 – 2008Clay Houses (Boulder-Room-Holes)[29] Glenstone
Potomac, Maryland, USA
October 2008Spire[30] Park Presidio
San Francisco
June 2009Refuge d’Art Hiking Trail, Provence, France[31] Provence
France
2010-11Wood Line[32] Park Presidio
San Francisco
7 September 2012 –
2 November 2012		Domo de Argila / Clay Dome[33] [34] Cais do Porto
Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
2013Tree Fall[35] Park Presidio
San Francisco
2014Earth Wall[36] Park Presidio
San Francisco
2019Walking Wall[37] [38] Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art
Missouri

Publications

See also

Further information

Articles:

Books:

Film/Documentary

External links

General:

Art:

Notes and References

  1. Stonard, John Paul (10 December 2000). "Goldsworthy, Andy". Grove Art Online . Retrieved on 15 May 2007.
  2. Web site: Andy Goldsworthy Biography. Encyclopedia of World Biography. 27 October 2018.
  3. News: Adams. Tim. Natural talent. The Observer. 11 March 2007 . London.
  4. Web site: Andy Goldsworthy . Cass Sculpture Foundation . 31 January 2008 . https://web.archive.org/web/20080312230709/http://www.sculpture.org.uk/biography/AndyGoldsworthy . 12 March 2008 . dead .
  5. Web site: All Professors at Large 1965 to June 30, 2021. Andrew D. White Professors-at-Large. Cornell University. 19 February 2016.
  6. Web site: Andy Goldsworthy: "Drawn Stone," 2005. 22 March 2010. de Young.
  7. In Their Words: James Turrell and Andy Goldsworthy . Sarah . Douglas . ARTINFO . 24 October 2005 . 16 April 2008 .
  8. News: Sooke. Alastair. He's got the whole world in his hands. The Daily Telegraph. 24 March 2007. London.
  9. Hatley . James D. . 2005 . Techne and Phusis: Wilderness and the Aesthetics of the Trace in Andrew Goldsworthy . Environmental Philosophy . 2 . 2 . 6–17 . 10.5840/envirophil2005222 . 26167923 . JSTOR.
  10. De Warren . Nicolas . 2007 . Off the Beaten Path: The Artworks of Andrew Goldsworthy . Environmental Philosophy . Special Issue: Environmental Aesthetics and Ecological Restoration . 4 . 1&2 . 29–48 . 10.5840/envirophil200741/24 . 26167139 . JSTOR.
  11. Matless . David . Revill . George . 1995 . A Solo Ecology: The Erratic Art of Andy Goldsworthy . Ecumene . 2 . 4 . 423–448 . 10.1177/147447409500200404 . 44251789 . 192196583 . JSTOR.
  12. News: Fawcett . Laughlin . 1997 . The Geometrician . 46–51, 72 . Landscape Architecture Magazine . 44671803 . 2023-02-20.
  13. Web site: Andy Goldsworthy: Art of nature. ninemsn. 19 February 2006. 18 June 2007. dead. https://web.archive.org/web/20071016185515/http://sunday.ninemsn.com.au/sunday/art_profiles/article_1934.asp. 16 October 2007. dmy-all.
  14. Web site: Rivers and Tides . IMDb . 26 September 2022.
  15. News: Ide . Wendy . 2018-08-12 . Leaning into the Wind review – more travels with Andy Goldsworthy . en-GB . The Observer . 2023-09-07 . 0029-7712.
  16. Web site: Sapsucker Cairn . Herbert F. Johnson Museum of Art . 12 November 2021.
  17. Web site: Artworks of Herring Island Environmental Sculpture Park . Herring Island . 19 February 2016.
  18. Web site: Andy Goldsworthy at Storm King Art Center. Storm King Art Center. 2000. 24 June 2007. dead. https://archive.today/20000929130043/http://www.stormking.org/specialexhib_archive.html. 29 September 2000. dmy-all.
  19. Web site: Andy Goldsworthy sculpture, Stone River, enters Stanford University's outdoor art collection. Cantor Arts Center, Stanford University. 4 September 2001. 10 February 2008. https://web.archive.org/web/20080821140118/http://museum.stanford.edu/news_room/archived_acquisitions_goldsworthy.html. 21 August 2008. dead. dmy-all.
  20. Web site: Andy Goldsworthy: Arch at Goodwood, 2002. Cass Sculpture Foundation. 30 January 2008. https://web.archive.org/web/20080204035417/http://www.sculpture.org.uk/work/000000100328/. 4 February 2008. dead. dmy-all.
  21. Web site: Three Cairns. Greater Des Moines Public Art Foundation. 2023. 30 October 2023.
  22. Web site: Andy Goldsworthy on the Roof. Metropolitan Museum of Art. 2004. 24 June 2007.
  23. News: Andy Goldsworthy : Early Works : Leaves, Twigs, Enormous Snowballs and Icicles... Andy Goldworthy's Sculptures are Inherently Surprising and Beautiful. bbc.co.uk. 4 May 2005. News: Andy Goldsworthy : Nature and Art Combine when the Early Works of the Internationally Renowned Artist Andy Goldsworthy come to Fairfields Art Centre in Basingstoke. bbc.co.uk. 20 September 2005.
  24. Web site: Andy Goldsworthy, Arches - Gibbs Farm. www.gibbsfarm.org.nz. 2016-03-12.
  25. Web site: The Andy Goldsworthy Project : 22 January – 15 May 2005. National Gallery of Art. 2005. 24 June 2007. https://web.archive.org/web/20070626162222/http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/goldsworthyainfo.shtm. 26 June 2007 . live.
  26. Web site: Andy Goldsworthy : Roof. National Gallery of Art. 24 June 2007. https://web.archive.org/web/20070713073128/http://www.nga.gov/exhibitions/goldsworthyinfo.shtm. 13 July 2007 . live.
  27. News: Oksenhorn. Stewart. A Wall of Integration, Not Division. Aspen Times Weekly. 23 September 2006. 16 October 2006. https://web.archive.org/web/20080830060158/http://www.aspentimes.com/article/20060923/ASPENWEEKLY03/109240048. 30 August 2008. dead.
  28. News: Calton . Gary (photographer) . Andy Goldsworthy at the Yorkshire Sculpture Park . . 11 March 2007 . London . 11 March 2007 . https://web.archive.org/web/20121114055916/http://observer.guardian.co.uk/flash/page/0,,2030260,00.html . 14 November 2012 . dead . Web site: Andy Goldsworthy . . 26 January 2024 . https://web.archive.org/web/20070618035315/http://www.ysp.co.uk/view.aspx?id=457 . 18 June 2007 . dead . dmy .
  29. Web site: Andy Goldsworthy . Glenstone . 17 March 2022.
  30. Web site: Spire, by Andy Goldsworthy . The Presidio Trust . 2009 . 22 July 2009 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20090512192134/http://www.presidio.gov/experiences/spire.htm . 12 May 2009 . dmy .
  31. News: Provence art trail, by Andy Goldsworthy. 31 August 2009 . The Guardian . London . 19 June 2009. https://web.archive.org/web/20090723135149/http://www.guardian.co.uk/travel/interactive/2009/jun/19/andy-goldsworthy-art-trail-in-france. 23 July 2009 . live.
  32. Web site: Andy Goldsworthy's Wood Line . The Presidio Trust . 2011 . 1 May 2020 .
  33. Web site: OiR Final release . https://web.archive.org/web/20120912032907/http://static.oir.art.br/visao/assets/downloads/oir_release_english.pdf . dead . 12 September 2012 . Oi Futuro Public Art Program . 25 September 2012 .
  34. Web site: Andy Goldsworthy – Domo de Argila Legendado – YouTube . Oi Futuro Public Art Program . 19 September 2012 . 25 September 2012 .
  35. Web site: Andy Goldsworthy's Earth Wall . The Presidio Trust . 2014 . 1 May 2020 .
  36. Web site: Andy Goldsworthy's Tree Fall . The Presidio Trust . 2014 . 1 May 2020 .
  37. News: This Wall Was Made For Walking. The New York Times. 23 October 2019. Mark Gardiner.
  38. Web site: Walking Wall . 29 December 2023.

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