Scottish artist Andy Goldsworthy uses a seemingly infinite array of purely natural materials, from snow and ice to leaves, stone, and twigs in the creation of his one-of-a-kind sculptures. Unlike such artists as Christo and Michael Hiezer, whose works leave definite marks on the landscape, Goldsworthy's approach is to interrupt, shape, or in some other way temporarily alter or work with nature to produce his fragile, mutable pieces. To create "Broken Icicle," for example, Goldsworthy was only able to work on the sculpture in the early morning, when temperatures were below freezing. As with most of his works, ultimately, the materials used to create this piece returned to their natural state, leaving no trace of the artwork's existence save for the stunning photos in this book.

From Library Journal
A new generation of American and European sculptors is receiving critical and commercial attention for rediscovering, in the spirit of Duchamp's Bicycle Wheel (1913), the wealth of forms in everyday life. Variously labeled "New Object," "Metaphoric Object," "Neo-Geo," or "Simulationist," this new sculpture mimics familiar objects from industrial, domestic, and historical sources. Eight such artists are features in OBJECTives: Robert Gober, Jeff Koons, Annette Lemieux, and Haim Steinbach from New York; Grenville Davis and Judith Opie from London; Katarina Fritsch from Cologne; and Juan Munoz from Madrid. This exhibition catalog, which presents works exhibited at the Newport Harbor Art Museum in California from April to June 1990, includes exhibition histories and a selected bibliography for each artist. Goldsworthy is an extraordinarily innovative British artist who employs a range of natural materials--leaves, bark, twigs, petals, berries, rock, clay, stones, feathers, snow, ice--to create outdoor sculpture that works instinctively in nature. His range of scale is impressive, from grasses and leaves to ice spires and slate stacks. Goldsworthy records his works in the 120 full-color photographs that are the subject of this book. The delicate tensions and balance of his collaborations encourage a sharpened perception of the natural world. Goldsworthy's introduction eloquently explains his working methods and philosophy and convinces the reader that he's doing more than playing the primitive.- Russell T. Clement, Brigham Young Univ. Lib., Provo, Ut.Copyright 1990 Reed Business Information, Inc.

ANNOTATION

120 photographs in full color, 120 pages, 10-1/2 x 12-1/8"

FROM THE CRITICS

Library Journal