Andy Goldsworthy
Related: landscape - contemporary art - British art
Ends of Bamboo (1987) - Andy Goldsworthy
Profile
Andy Goldsworthy (born 1956) is a British artist and photographer living in Scotland who produces site specific sculpture and land art situated in natural settings. His art involves the use of natural and found objects to create temporary sculptural pieces which both appear naturalstic and create stark contrasts with their surroundings. He works closely with form and color contrasts to produce works that are both striking and ephemeral.
His media often include twigs, thorns, muds, snow, icicles, brightly colored flowers and leaves. For tools he often uses only his bare hands and found tools, although more recent works like the Moonlit Path and Chalk Stones (Petworth, West_Sussex - 2002) have also used heavy machinery.
His work process is both obsessive and opportunistic. He is preoccupied with the inevitable destruction of his sculptures by elemental forces, as was highlighted in the Midsummer Snowballs (Midsummer's Day, 2000 - various locations in London, England) where the destruction of the piece was almost the whole point. He seems to prefer works that exist only extremely briefly or whose continued coherence is highly uncertain. Many of his pieces collapse during construction and he often rebuilds them several times before he is able to photograph them in completion.
The documentary movie Rivers and Tides (2001, by Thomas Riedelsheimer) shows his work in action and some of the pieces he has created. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andy_Goldsworthy [Mar 2006]
Site specific art
Site specific art, also environmental art, is artwork created to exist in a certain place. Typically, the artist takes the location into account while planning and creating the artwork.
Outdoor site-specific artworks often include landscaping combined with permanently sited sculptural elements. Indoor site-specific artworks may be created in conjunction with (or indeed by) the architects of the building.
More broadly, the term is sometimes used for any work that is (more or less) permanently attached to a particular location. In this sense, a building with interesting architecture could be considered a piece of site specific art. Artists producing site-specific works range from people like Robert Smithson, Andy Goldsworthy and Christo to Richard Serra, Brandon LaBelle and younger artists like Sarah Sze. --http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Site-Specific_Art [Mar 2006]
Andy Goldsworthy's Rivers & Tides (2001) - Thomas Riedelsheimer
Andy Goldsworthy's Rivers & Tides (2001) - Thomas Riedelsheimer [Amazon.com] [FR] [DE] [UK]
Portrait of Andy Goldsworthy, an artist whose specialty is ephemeral sculptures made from elements of nature.
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