Parkland, Goldsworthy, Andy

Andy Goldsworthy makes land or earth art out of, among other materials, stacks of rocks, or stalks tied together, or mud thrown into rivers or poppy petals wrapped around boulders. His art is a sensitive, intuitive response to nature, light, time, growth, the seasons and the earth.

Fully illustrated, with a revised text. Bibliography and notes. 348pp. ISBN 9781861714398. www.crmoon.com

EXTRACT FROM THE CHAPTER ON GOLDSWORTHY'S LEAFWORKS

It is the leafworks that are the most colourful of Andy Goldsworthy's sculptures. What the leaf sculptures show is how beautiful the colours of nature are: Goldsworthy shows the viewer these subtle colours by contrasting one leaf with another. Maple patch grouped the red/ orange/ yellow of Japanese maple leaves together; Poppy leaves contrasted the red poppy leaves against the mid-green of an elderberry bush; a Stone Wood sculpture of 1992 consisted of poppy leaves wrapped around a hazel branch, the red constrasting vividly with the wet green leaves; Dock Leaves interwove red leaves in green grass stalks. Two sycamore leafworks of 1980 and 1981 are very simple: a leaf black from cow shit is placed against pale Autumn leaves; another leaf, bleached white, is set down on a bed of dark leaves. He pins together two colours of sycamore leaves (sycamore is a favourite Goldsworthy medium) in Sycamore leaf sections (1988), and hangs the line of leaves from a tree. Shot with the sun behind them, the photograph of the leaves shows them glowing green and gold, the two classic colours of poetry and alchemy.

REVIEW ON AMAZON

A happily received gift. It's worth the price for one who wants a scholarly while earthy (sorry, couldn't help it) approach to the work. There's a quirkiness about the writing style that is engaging and honest. I'm glad I have the book and will reread it as I purchase other books on Goldsworthy where the work is shown via great photography.

REVIEW ON AMAZON

This is a chatty informational book. It has stories of many artists that have been associated with Andy Goldsworthy in his long career as a contemporary nature sculptor. If you are looking for a personal history this is a book for you.

REVIEW ON AMAZON

Known as a 'land', 'earth', 'nature' or 'environmental' artist, Andy Goldsworthy works with(in) nature. He uses natural materials in natural shapes and forms often set in natural contexts (but also in cities, towns, parks, sculpture parks, and many spaces created or adapted by people).

In the 1990s, Andy Goldsworthy's art began to rise in popularity: the glossy coffee table book Stone became a bestseller (bear in mind it was then priced at $55). In 1994 Goldsworthy took over some West End galleries with a large one-man show. In 1995 he was part of an intriguing group show at the British Museum (Time Machine), creating sculptures, along with Richard Deacon, Peter Randall-Page and others, in amongst the monumental statuary of the famous Egyptian Hall. Also in 1995, Goldsworthy designed a set of Royal Mail stamps (and again in 2003). Digne in France became an increasingly important Goldsworthy location, with shows in 1995, 1997 and 2000). Prestigious commissions occurred in the US from the mid-1990s onwards. For instance: the giant Wall at Storm King Art Center in 1998; the Three Cairns on the East and West Coasts and Iowa in 2001-02; the 'stone houses' at the Metropolitan Museum in Gotham in 2004; the monument to the Holocaust (also in New York) in 2003; and the slate domes in Washington, DC in 2005. Goldsworthy continues to work in countries such as Japan, Australia, Holland, Canada, North America and France (with France and the US becoming primary centres of Goldsworthy activity), but his home ground of Dumfriesshire in Scotland remains (at) the heart of his work.

AUTHOR BIOGRAPHY

William Malpas has written books on Richard Long and land art, as well as three books on Andy Goldsworthy, including Andy Goldsworthy In America. Malpas's books on Richard Long and Andy Goldsworthy are the only full-length studies of these artists available.

Fully illustrated, with a revised text. Bibliography and notes. 312pp. ISBN 9781861714404. www.crmoon.com

There are a number of essential sites to visit for Andy Goldsworthy's art in America: (1) the slate mounds in Washington's National Gallery of Art; (2) Garden of Stones in New York's Museum of Jewish Heritage; (3) the cracked stones at the de Young Museum in San Francisco; (4) the Storm King Wall in New York; and (5) Three Cairns in Des Moines, Iowa.

Fully illustrated, including images of the American landscape, and Goldsworthy's contemporaries.

Includes photographs taken by the author of Andy Goldsworthy's works in America, including in Washington, DC, San Francisco, New York State and Iowa.

Bibliography and notes.

WILLIAM MALPAS has written books on Richard Long and land art, as well as three books on Andy Goldsworthy, including the forthcoming Andy Goldsworthy In America. Malpas's books on Richard Long and Andy Goldsworthy are the only full-length studies of these artists available.

Andy Goldsworthy works with the natural world, and within nature. He uses natural materials in natural shapes and forms set in natural contexts. Goldsworthy takes his cue from nature: as Jan Dibbets put it in 1969: 'I realized that if you want to use nature, you have to derive the appropriate structure from nature too'. Nature may be the starting-point but, as we'll see, the end-point - art - is entirely cultural and not something you'll ever find in the natural world.

Andy Goldsworthy seems to be a particularly gentle and sensitive artist, compared to many sculptors and land artists: he stitches together leaves to form lines (which're often placed in water, or over branches), or makes circular slabs of snow, or entwines twigs in an arc. He creates a delicate spiral of chestnut leaves, called Autumn Horn (1986); he pins bright yellow dandelions on willowherb stalks in a circle, on bluebells (1987); he makes lines and cairns of pebbles; a horizontal line of red sumach leaves was pinned to a willow (at Storm King in 1998); he rubs red stones to stain rockpools; he pins leaves to tree trunks; he fashions a zigzag line of hogweed stalks along a fallen elm tree (2002); he makes hollow, circular structures, recalling igloos, from slate, leaves, driftwood and bracken; he creates long wavy ridges in Arizonan and Australian desert sand; he throws sand and sticks in the air and photographs the moment.