Goldsworthy, A., 1996, Wood, Camaron books, Dumfriesshire
- Author : Goldsworthy, A.
- Year : 1996
- Title English : Wood
- Publisher : Camaron books
- Publisher's Location : Dumfriesshire
- ISBN : 0810939924
- Pages : 120
- Edition : 1
- Abstract : Abstract from Internet: In Wood, Andy Goldsworthy both parallels and extends the themes and preoccupations that informed the work in his previous book, Stone, this time offering a compelling exploration of the nature of wood as he has grown to know it. Goldsworthy evokes ideas of growth, of perpetual change, of transformation through works make of leaves, branches, ice, snow, boulders, sand. Much of his art is ephemeral: what has been drawn from nature will sooner or later merge with it again. The books sections, entitled Earth, Seed, Root, Branch, Leaf and Tree and prefaced by extracts from the artists working diaries, point to its organic structure. Luminous throws of dust in a wheat field convey Goldsworthys sense of the earth breathing; a snowball poised near the base of a huge, protective tree in a snow-bound field suggests the seed; a serpentine line of bracken leaves pinned with thorns and a snaking sand sculpture in a museum of Egyptian antiquities jubilantly echo the root undulating through the ground; two reconstructions of branches in Alaska - one smoothly looping, the other jagged and angular - reflect the contrasting qualities of wood; a delicate chain of yellow leaves drops into a dark, quiet pool and meanders through fallen, floating leaves before climbing effortlessly back into the boughs of the tree from which it came. Woven through the book are intriguing glimpses of a ballet, Végétal, in which dancers build, dismantle and rebuild versions of Goldsworthys sculptures on stage - a collaboration which draws fascinating parallels between dance and the process of making sculptures, evoking a sense of the strengths and delicacies to be found both in nature and in the human body, and the randomness but also the patterns and flows to be found in the organic world.
- Comments : KEYWORDS: art, nature, wood, stone.