Andy Goldsworthy a Collaboration with Nature Andy Goldsworthy a Collaboration with Nature

Andy Goldsworthy A Collaboration with Nature Andy Goldsworthy A Collaboration with Nature Edited by Terry Friedman and Andy Goldsworthy Harry N. Abrams, Inc., Publishers “As with all my work, whether it's a leaf on a rock or ice on a rock, I'm trying to get beneath the surface appearance of things. Working the surface of a stone is an at- tempt to understand the internal energy of the stone.” Andy Goldsworthy 7 Foreword 9 Introduction 13 The Photograph Andy Goldsworthy 21 Beginnings Miranda Strickland-Constable 37 Environmental Sculptures Andrew Causey 53 Leafworks Paul Nesbitt Andy Goldsworthy is represented Projects by Galerie Lelong, New York, 75 Monuments Paris, Zurich and Haines Gallery, Terry Friedman 113 Holes San Francisco 93 Touchstone North 119 Throws and Splashes ISBN 0-8109-3420-5 Andy Goldsworthy Copyright © 1990 Authors as 125 Haarlemmerhout listed and The Henry Moore Cen- tre for the Study of Sculpture 131 Holbeck Triangle Published in 1993 by Harry N. 137 Glasgow Abrams, Incorporated, New York. All rights reserved. No part of 143 Quay Art Centre the contents of this book may be reproduced without the written 149 Yorkshire Sculpture Park permission of the publisher. 155 The Lake District Printed and bound in Italy by Artegrafica, Verona 161 The North Pole Scanning and reproduction by Leeds Photo Litho Ltd. 167 Castres and Sidobre Design by Yangin Shieh Contents 173 Snowballs in Summer 179 Bibliography 185 Acknowledgments 189 Contributors Bright sunny morning/frozen snow/ Andy Goldsworthy is best known for his small cut slab/scraped snow away with a stick just short of breaking through, ephemeral works created ad hoc in the landscape Izumi-Mura, Japan and recorded as photographs. Since April 1984, however, when he made Seven Spires in Grizedale Forest in the Lake District, he has completed five commissions for large-scale works, and has several more at the planning stage. There have been two projects at Grizedale, another woodland sculpture at Hooke Park in Dorset, and two huge Environmental earthworks on the line of an abandoned railway at Lambton near Chester Street and Leadgate Sculptures near Consett, both in County Durham. Goldswor- thy has plans involving the use of stone walls in Andrew Causey France and the United States, a series of artificial tree-clad mounds in Holland, and a set of cones made of layers of steel for a site overlooking the Tyne at Gateshead. Understanding these projects involves both defining them as a category and distinguishing them from Goldsworthy’s ephemeral works. Set- ting the photograph pieces against the larger more permanent projects, Goldsworthy sees himself as two different artists, but does not want the large works’ growing demands on his time to draw him away from the photograph pieces, which he sees as the core of his art.1 The distinctions between the kinds of work are most obviously the contrast of size and the quite different ways they are made. For the large projects to be properly understood, these distinctions need to be refined. Bright sunny morning a certain color are brought together, the random- frozen snow,cut slab scraped snow away with a stick just ness of nature is removed, and geometrical forms short of breaking through are created that highlight edges, crevices and Izumi-Mura, Japan holes.3 The works are elegant, refined exhibits of a craftsmanly virtuosity that makes us look at nature more closely. But in the sense that they bring the viewer up short, and surprise with their wit and resource, they are not natural. Their brilliance lies largely in their artifice, and the illusionism of color and scale aligns them with painting as much as sculpture. The photograph pieces often stand apart from their natural surroundings which become a form of background or context. Characterized in this way by having The small works are inspirations of the mo- 1. Unpublished notes. distinct boundaries, they work ideally as framed 2. Parts of this essay ment, made intuitively without plans or drawings, are photographs on the wall of a gallery. Without ex- the artist’s only tool being a knife. Goldsworthy is based on conversations aggerating the distinctions between the types of with the artist at Touching north Penpont during 1988, alone, he photographs the sculpture to preserve it, project in this respect, it can be said that surprise, North Pole 1989 and 1990, as well and a color print is then available for exhibition in as two undated letters illusion, and other characteristics that make the an art gallery. The large works, on the other hand, written in February small works immediately arresting and separate 1990 (The Henry are commissions, which may have been competed Moore Centre for the from their surroundings are less prominent in the for. Drawings are important here to clarify the Study of Sculpture large projects, where continuity with the environ- archives). project in the artist’s mind, support applications 3. Rain 1985, p. 4. ment is a part of their identity, and their char- and guide fellow workers. These projects involve 4. ‘Image is not the acter is partly defined by the modest, sometimes correct word, since, assistants, art students brought in to dig holes and unless we are speaking minimal, difference between the sculpture and the of the photograph only, 4 handle manual winches at Grizedale and Hooke, it is emphatically not adjacent landscape. Although distinct objects, the and the skilled operator of a mechanical excavator, an image of anything; environmental works differ from the small ones in but configurations, 2 Steve Fox, at Lambton and Leadgate. The early which would be that they cannot be removed from the landscape. commissions presented financial problems, and all more precise, I find To photograph one and place it on the wall of a inelegant. of them confronted the artist with organizational gallery would simply be to document what the art- challenges that the small works do not. The brief ist had done, rather than exhibit a work of art: the lives of the photograph pieces contrast with the life of the large works is there in the landscape long ones of the large works. Permanence elimi- and nowhere else. nates the need for photographs, so the large projects do not become art works for sale in a gallery. Beyond these technical distinctions are oth- ers that help define the types of work further. The photograph pieces are rearrangements of nature in which, for example, stones, leaves or flowers of 38 Environmental Sculptures 39 Andrew Causey pools in the folds of his earthworks, the sun and shadow encourage some growth and not other.5 He is concerned with the way people respond to his sculpture, without trying to influence them. These points lead back to the question of Place is crucial to his art: a work must fit, must he avoided working in a clearing, which would what sculpture is. Goldsworthy did a sculpture draw on its environment and become part of it. have been the obvious choice if he had wanted to course at Preston Polytechnic, and is called a But place is distinct from mere space. Places follow the tradition of giving sculpture its own sculptor. But what is sculpture if, within the work have history and character and exist in time, space within a picturesque context. Goldsworthy, of a single artist, it is a photograph one moment and Goldsworthy’s sculptures, which gather by contrast, needed Seven Spires to work with and an earth work the next? Understanding Gold- meaning and character from places also exist in nature to the extent of becoming all but part of it. sworthy means taking into account the way sculp- time, being subject to natural change and any He wanted the pine trees to dictate the idea, scale ture has expanded its field in the last twenty-five other changes–of land use, for example–that and form of the sculpture, and in this has added a years, and distinguishing between something that affect public places as opposed to the protected new dimension to the idea of what sculpture can was traditionally to be looked at is now, think- space of an art gallery. be. With Seven Spires there is only modest differ- ing of the earthworks, something to be walked Grizedale is a working woodland run by the ence between the trunks that form the spires and over or cycled through. How sculpture related to Forestry Commission, and finance for sculptors those of the live trees. Goldsworthy is interested a particular place was a minor issue when that to work there using its timber has been available in what is like nature yet different. place was an art gallery; the concern then was the since 1977. It is open to the public and a leaflet The relation of the sculpture to its surround- space it needed rather than the place it was in. locates each sculpture on the many miles of for- commission, Seven Spires, takes this into account, ings is not a stable one, because, as time passes, But for Goldsworthy the character of the place is est track. But Grizedale is not a conventional not just because the seven sets of clustered pine living trees grow and are ultimately felled, while the core of the brief he gives himself. How then, sculpture park, because its main purpose is to trunks grouped in tall pyramid forms are made dead ones slowly decay away. Most of Seven Spires the issue becomes, can sculpture relate to forestry, grow timber rather than provide the opportunity from the forest’s surplus timber. Seven Spires is can be seen properly only close-to, inside the or to archaeology? Tying these questions together to view art in the open air.

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