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Andy Goldsworthy |
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TWO BIG ONES The same clay-like material in "Five Stone Drawings" appears again at monumental scale in "Clay Wall." The material is here applied about a foot deep across an entire 15' by 30' wall of a gallery. When the clay was fresh, Goldsworthy cut a large circle deep into its surface. Over the course of the exhibition; as the material dries, shrivels, and generally succumbs to the processes the artist expects of it; the circle becomes ever more apparent within its increasingly tormented surround. "Clay Wall" is a synthetic, museum adapted version of a type of work he's been doing in natural settings for a number of years -- incising geometric and biomorphic shapes into the mud of drying ponds then returning to photograph the expression of the shapes in the parched, cracked surface at the end of the dry season. That the works in nature exist horizontally on the ground and the effort in the museum exists vertically on the wall seems odd when you think of it, but this paradox doesn't make the work any less visually dramatic.
What does make the work less dramatic is the overly close proximity of a large cairn similar in shape to the Iowa limestone cairn outside. This one is assembled with "Scottish wind fallen oak branches," and appropriately titled "Oak Cairn." Clearly an import and not one of the "Three Cairns," it seems to be part of the exhibition more as a matter of convenience than because of any desire by Goldsworthy to express his creativity using local materials, such as Californian (via Australia) wind fallen eucalyptus branches. |
