Andy Goldsworthy: Rivers and Tides

Andy Goldsworthy, a British artist who gets his inspiration and material from the natural world, is the narrator in the film Rivers and Tides. The documentary follows him as he creates his work from the things he finds outside in nature and provides insight into his philosophy, his methods, and his cooperation with nature.

Process, decay, impermanence, transition are all words that I would use to describe Andy Goldsworthy’s art. What is so wonderful about this man’s work is that it completely abandons all pretense that is traditionally part of our embedded notions of what art is supposed to be: as a child, I learned that art was something that was finished, complete, totally preserved, prevented from erosion, from death, decomposition or even aging. Museums were the teacher and I grew up believing in this model. Goldsworthy employs exactly all of the things opposite of the techniques that I learned. His materials are organic (such as the leaves or the thin vines woven through the foliage), his method is lengthy and exposed (he is outside, in a public place, taking all day long to assemble something that will go away in hours such as the icicle rock sculpture), and his completed pieces are impermanent (they begin to change form the minute he is done with them such as the spiral of sticks in a pile that the river washes away).

The documentary makes watching Andy Goldsworthy very exciting. In the realtime of his constructions, however, the process is most likely boring, tedious and even painful. When gathering up the reeds from the pasture sculpture, he mentions how the plant has brutal thorns that rip the flesh. As he was creating the icicle structure, he paused often to blow on his hands which were frozen from being exposed to the cold since early in the morning before dawn.

As I was watching the film, I tried to figure out what held my attentions so intently. I think that the thrill is from the opportunity to witness with our eyes the amazing moment at which the piece has been done and the fact that it will no longer be there for anyone else to see. We understand the excruciating patience and physical demands that may have gone into the piece, but we get to skip that part and witness the beauty and perfect elegance of the form against the picturesque backdrop of the landscape — places where we most likey will never get to in our whole lives.

The work is at the same time NOT scultpure. Like photography or film, Goldsworthy’s pieces are simulacra reproduced by secondary visual media for our viewing pleasure. As viewers, we are removed from the pieces themselves — we do not get to see what Andy Goldsworthy or the person behind the motion camera see. We are only secondary observers.

I love this work for its simplicity and its successful return to a time in our lives when we weren’t burdened with critics or money or art school. I remember a time when I took great efforts to draw these elaborate pictures in the sand with my stick only to see the ocean waves erase the drawing. It made me giggle hysterically because it was like a game against Great Ocean: it would dare me to make another drawing before deciding that the slate had to be clean again!