Documentary photographs and graphic works related to past installations, and plans for a projected installation
deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum
Lincoln, MA
May 29, 2011 – Dec 31, 2011
© Andy Goldsworthy, (Courtesy of the Artist and Galerie Lelong, New York)
Over the past several decades, Andy Goldsworthy has invented and developed an entire domain of contemporary art characterized principally by the use of natural, found materials, though not always limited to them. His work is now well known, but, when it first appeared a couple of decades ago, it was strikingly unique. Though more familiar now, his work remains witty, relevant and specifically attuned to the environments in which it is enacted.
A couple of years ago, the deCordova commissioned Goldsworthy to create a work for the ever-growing sculpture park, and Goldsworthy conceived Snow House, which is to be installed sometime in the next couple of years. The idea is geographically relevant, historically evocative and in keeping with a line of Goldsworthy’s work done in snow and ice. The project involves building a granite house for housing an annual giant snowball, to be rolled and stored annually during the winter by deCordova staff. During each succeeding summer, Snow House will be opened to view, during which time – projected at a week to ten days – the ball will thaw and melt.
Several drawings and descriptive panels in the Snow exhibit describe the project and are supplemented by a number of documentary photographs and several graphic works commemorating snow and ice works done elsewhere by Goldsworthy.
Frozen Snow/Helbeck (1984) depicts a number of sizable, tubular snow squiggles. The squiggle keeps showing up in Goldsworthy’s work, usually in two dimensional forms, but here it’s sculptural. Kind of cool.
Various depictions of other midsummer snowball projects are included. Chelsea Snowball (2007) and Union Square Snowball (2007) are prints, as it were, done in the dirt residue left by melting snow patterns upon paper templates.
27 1/2 x 77 1/2 in. each, © Andy Goldsworthy, (Courtesy of the Artist and Galerie Lelong, New York)
A room showing a timeline for the ice industry in New England accompanies the exhibit. There is also a case displaying various kinds of ice tongs.
Someone recently told me how Fresh Pond in Cambridge had been a source for ice sent to South America (before electric refrigeration) and noted the rail tracks, still intact next to the pond, on which the ice was transported to ships in the harbor.
A video shows ice being cut and harvested from Spy Pond in Arlington. Apparently, in 1880, 660,000 tons of ice were shipped from Boston ponds for foreign and domestic sale.
It is always refreshing and interesting to see how Goldsworthy takes his cues from the local terrain. Drawn Stone (2005), installed at the deYoung Museum in San Francisco, is a long crack at the museum’s entrance, honoring one of San Francisco’s distinctively vulnerable terrestrial highlights.
Andy Goldsworthy: A Collaboration with Nature
Midsummer Snowballs by Andy Goldsworthy
– BADMan
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