Rivers and Tides : Andy Goldsworthy

Have you ever seen wind and water making art by themselves? Have you ever seen an artist who without any particular tool makes beautiful piece of art? Have you ever thought Time can make art more beautiful? Have you ever meet a person who don’t believe in immortality of art? Well here it is. Andy Goldsworthy is a British sculptor, photographer and environmentalist who produces site-specific sculptures and land art situated in natural and urban settings. He don’t use any particular tool to create his piece of art. He goes to the nature, finds something which is given by nature, and after making it give it back to the nature. He is working with time. He knows when the sea will touch his work. He knows after how many days the art will show up. With that understanding of time he creates something beautiful. He believes in flow, flow of everything. He also says that everything has fluidity. Here we are talking about his documentary, “River and Tides – Working with Time”

What Andy Goldsworthy is making, the process of making that piece is very hard. He goes to the sea or anywhere, he finds the material he wants, for instance at sea he made the art from stones, but then he has found those thousands of stones from that sea only. The work is very hard but then he knows it will not stay forever or may be not a one day also. This fact doesn’t make Goldsworthy think to stop doing this work at any way. He says, that if for some days he didn’t work then he feel rootless. Sometimes when he is making his piece of work, the work collapse, but then he don’t feel discouraged, because he knows this from the very beginning but then even he choose to make it.

He created a hole from woods at sea shore, when tide comes and start dismantling it, he says, it feels like water is taking it to some another planet, in other world. It does not feel like destruction at all. He also says that this is gift from me to the nature, then what nature does with it, is upon nature. Well while saying this he may be knows very well that permanency is not in the nature. Perseverance is act of culture, but in nature, something which has taken birth, it will meet its death also. He has made snake like curvy figure from ice, for that he has to wake up early as sun will melt the ice. Once he completed it, he was there observing it. The rays of sun has lighten the ice, but then its heat also melt the ice, and he was there seeing his art melting down.

He has worked with water a lot. He has sewed the leaves and then put it in the water. It goes with flow and it self it makes an new art. He also has worked with pure red colour, which he has found under the water. First it looks like blood. He has found all the red stones from water then grind it in fine powder. Then he throws it in to the wind and see how wind creates the art. He also has made ball of it and throw it in to the water. The red colour is alien to the water, he says. How beautifully that red colour splashed in to the water, melt it self and starts flowing with the water. That is the art of water.

He has worked on landscape also. While talking about sheep he create a perfect line on the wall from cotton. If we look it from distance it looks like snow perfectly has fallen on the stone and has made that line. At the end we can also see from the helicopter the wall. The shape wall is curvy lile a big snake.

At last he makes art on wall with the help of some other members. The beauty of this art is, it will show up when it will dry, then it will vanish also. He also does this with some particular woods. He made circle of it and then let it dry. Here time it self is an art. The documentary has been recorded very well. Some picture of his family in between distracts the viewers. But it was very well narrated and recorded.

Thank you.