Above: Andy Goldsworthy, ‘Red Wall’, 2025.
Andy Goldsworthy is artist known for his work with nature and ephemeral materials such as rock, wood, leaves, snow, ice, and clay, and the site specificity of his pieces. He arranges them in a way that is just beyond the realm of possibility, investigating the line between the natural and artificial.
In 1992, he covered the floor of a London gallery in clay. In 1996 he made the same work at Haines Gallery in San Francisco, but against a 14′ x 17′ wall. The work was made knowing the clay would crack, and not knowing whether the clay would stay attached, but it surprisingly stayed attached for many years, despite occasional earthquakes. This was the beginning of a line of inquiry of clay, creating works with things embedded in clay, experimenting with intentional drying and cracking,
“… to make change an integral part of a work’s purpose so that, if anything, it becomes stronger and more complete as it falls apart and disappears.
“Clay can be well-behaved and easy to work. Yet it has such a powerful impact on the landscape: it reveals its more unpredictable qualities as it dries, and this process interests me most.”
Andy Goldsworthy, Clay Wall, Haines Gallery, 1996.
Andy Goldsworthy, Clay Wall, Ingleby Gallery, 1998.
Above: Drawn Stone is piece commissioned by the De Young in 2005. It is a continuous crack running north from the edge of the Music Concourse roadway in front of the museum up to the main entrance door, inspired by California’s tectonics.
Video: Andy Goldsworthy’s Earth Wall, Presidio of San Francisco, 2014.