Time [Hardcover]

Andy Goldsworth (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 31, 2000

Time, always an element in the work of Andy Goldsworthy - both as a medium and as a metaphor - is celebrated in this book. Text contributions are compiled from Goldsworthy's own diaries of visits to five locations in North America and Europe.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Whether measured in minutes or eons, time is a good friend of British artist Andy Goldsworthy's. He spends long, solitary days outdoors in all kinds of weather, doing things like piecing together many, many yellow leaves to create a brilliant band of color at a river's edge in upstate New York or stacking small pieces of ice on the Nova Scotia coast to build a sculpture in the compact shape of an ancient stone monument. Threatened by a strong gust of wind, the incoming tide, or a sudden rise in temperature, these are fugitive works comfortably in synch with the natural rhythms of growth and decay.

Other works of his are longer-lasting. In walls made of stacked stones with hollowed-out oval "chambers" the size of his body--which he began building in 1999 in Lancashire, England--Goldsworthy makes reference not only to the shapes of graves in a nearby church but also to his personal history in the region and the enduring qualities of a rugged landscape.

Goldsworthy is the rare artist who can describe what he does in simple, concrete terms that nonetheless reveal his larger vision. Time is a very satisfying collection of 500 photographs, nearly all taken by him, that document the creation and subsequent mutations of his work. These evocative images are illuminated by excerpts from the diaries he kept as he created five projects in Europe and North America in the '90s. He discusses what it's like to explore an unfamiliar landscape, assess how the elements will work for and against him, and perform what are essentially a set of experiments. Success means making work that is, as he writes, "completely welded to its site." --Cathy Curtis --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

The earth is Goldsworthy's medium, and he works quiet, fleeting miracles as he creates exquisitely delicate and temporal sculptures out of leaves, twigs, ice, petals, feathers, sand, water, and stone. Left open to the forces of time and change, each piece succumbs to the inevitable process of dissolution, an integral aspect of Goldsworthy's lyrically sacrificial art, and he captures these transformations in elegant photographs. This is his most comprehensive book to date, and the most revealing. In diary entries that chart his experiences working in Scotland (his home), Canada, New Mexico, Japan, and Holland, he writes eloquently about the why and how of his magical work, articulates his fascination with change and decay, and describes the challenges of working in such volatile settings as beaches and woods in winter. By reversing Western art's tradition of creating works that will last long after the artist has gone, Goldsworthy celebrates beauty's transitory nature and willingly embraces the full cycle of life and death. Donna Seaman
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an alternate Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 204 pages
• Publisher: Thames & Hudson; First edition (August 31, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0500510261
• ISBN-13: 978-0500510261
• Product Dimensions: 11.8 x 10.2 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 3.9 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,302,343 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

52 of 52 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The best yet, November 20, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Time (Hardcover)

If you are already an Andy Goldsworthy fan, this book is an essential coming together of his various design phases. It explains chronologically his life's work. The commentary describes his methods and his feelings. The photography as always is breathtaking making every page a joy.

If you are not already a fan this book represents a 'best of' summation of his work and makes his other three books a more indepth look at each phase of his working life. So buy this one first.

30 of 30 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Another superb look at Andy Goldsworthy's ephemeral art, September 4, 2002

By 

Catherine S. Vodrey (East Liverpool, Ohio United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Time (Hardcover)

Andy Goldsworthy's artwork is utterly ephemeral and fleeting, and perhaps because of this, utterly transfixing. There is something of the ancients in the way Goldsworthy puts together stone, or wood, or leaves--or even in the way he lays himself down on a dry patch of ground in the rain so that when he gets up, we see a sort of reverse shadow of his body. There is an astonishing intellect at work here, and a soul which sees the value in what some art snobs might term "mere beauty."

Goldsworthy's many mediums are covered in "Time," which features sumptuous photography by Terry Friedman. We see perfectly constructed stone cairns--some pyramidal, some only half done and all the more startling for what isn't there as for what is. We see ruddy sandstone arches four times the height of a man. But Goldsworthy's most consistently inviting work is done not in stone, but in the ephemera nature leaves for him everywhere he looks. Goldsworthy's work is sometimes so fleeting as to question the very nature of whether it constitutes art when it lasts only minutes or hours. The frost shadows, for instance, are simply photographs of the still-iced patches of grass over which Goldsworthy stood in the early morning, then stepped aside so that a photograph could be taken. Of course these are gone within minutes as the sun warms the now-exposed grass. Is this art? Merely the fact that you question it shows your engagement with the work--Goldsworthy fosters a kind of subtle dialogue between reader and artist and the dialogue is consistently engaging. Another heat-destroyed piece is the thinnest imaginable sheet of ice, laid against a moss-covered rock, and Goldsworthy's handprint visible on it. As it thawed, it buckled and disappeared and we see its disappearance in the photographs. It's lovely, it's witty and it is, improbably art.

Other things disappear, too, but not from the sun's warmth. There is a "stick hole" Goldsworthy built early one spring which he and Friedman came back to photograph throughout the summer until the final photograph shows it utterly covered with the lacy ferns which grew up around it. There are the perfectly circular or perfectly ovoid leaf rafts Goldsworthy stitches together, then sends on their way down a meandering stream, having their path photographed before they disappear. There are the piled of rocks he constructs leading into the ocean so that the tides swallow them up--each stage meticulously recorded on film.

Perhaps the most transformative art in the book is the mud wall displayed on the cover. Goldsworthy applied mud to walls and floor in such a way that when the mud cracked and dried, it showed the meandering, snakelike pattern he'd put into it. It has become something entirely different solely through the passage of time. This book is filled with surprises and delights, and will have you utterly absorbed, charmed, and astonished. I can't recommend it highly enough.

31 of 33 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars What a work of creative and artistic genius!, April 17, 2003

By 

remosito (Princeton, NJ) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Time (Hardcover)

What a work of creative and artistic genius!

What to say about such an amazing work? For the first few times I
mainly absorbed the photos of his works, with only reading the
little captions and it wiped me off my feet. After a few rounds
of these I decided to read all of the writing in the book that
accompany the works he made and it totally blew me away. This
book has definitely altered something deep inside about the way
Ilook at nature, change, the seasons and time in general.

Time, as the title of the book suggests is the main topic of the
book and Andy Goldsworthy's art in general or at least his
approach and intention towards it. The body of work presented in
numerous photos and with corresponding writing in the form of a
journal covers the whole range Goldsworthy's work. For example
works made from stone, wood, leaves, snow, ice,...

As a result it gives an excellent overview and introduction of
his work and via the numerous writings a very deep, personal and
detailed insight into how he approaches different places, how he
reacts to change and works with the weather. The writing is on
par with his work. Very clear, direct, honest and poetic.

His insight into the concepts of time and change and seasons and
nature is truly breath taking. The introduction he wrote for the
book is a wonderful example illustrating this. Part of it can be
read by using the "Look inside the book" feature of Amazon.

Spending time with this book really cracks ones mind wide open
about time, change, nature and seasons and how to look at it and
perceive it.

And honestly I don't know what's more amazing. These amazing
and unbelievable pieces of art. Or the incredibly crisp and poetic
writing, deepening so much ones understanding of the works and
give insight into Goldsworthys view and approach and thoughts. Or
simply that out there somewhere a human being is walking this
earth with such an amazing understanding of time and nature and
able to transform this into amazing art an writing.

If the idea of Goldsworthys work is for him to work with time and
change and nature and to further his awareness of these concepts
and make sense of them in the most beautiful way then that is
exactly what this book excells marvelously at for the reader.