Andy Goldsworthy Works | Bio | Press | Exhibition views
British, b. 1956
Lives and works in Dumfriesshire, Scotland
Over the past 30 years, Andy Goldsworthy has gained a significant reputation for both his ephemeral works and his permanent installations that draw out the inherent character of the places where they are sited.
The artist works with natural materials, such as leaves, sand, ice, and stone that often originate from the local site, to address notions of materiality, process, and temporality. Time in Goldsworthy’s practice is often understood in terms of “the bodily experience, the motion of the body through space over time,” as captured in his ephemeral works and recent videos. In his site-specific commissions and landscape projects, “Goldsworthy is quite explicit about the idea that [they] are completed by people walking to, and creating connecting pathways among, them.” San Francisco is home to five such projects: Spire (2008), Wood Line (2010-11), Tree Fall (2013) and Earth Wall (2014) at The Presidio, and Drawn Stone (2005) at the de Young Museum.
Other site-specific works and commissions include Storm King Wall, Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, NY; Garden of Remembrance, Jewish Heritage Museum, New York, NY; Roof, National Gallery of Art Washington, D.C.; Walking Wall, Nelson-Atkins Museum, Kansas City, MO; and Red Flags, exhibited at Rockefeller Center, New York, NY as part of Frieze Sculpture 2020. Goldsworthy has exhibited in major museums such as the Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, NY (2004); Frederik Meijer Gardens & Sculpture Park, Grand Rapids, MI (2006); the Yorkshire Sculpture Park, U.K. (2007); Pori Art Museum, Finland (2011); and deCordova Sculpture Park and Museum, Lincoln, MA (2011). His works are collected by major private and public institutions worldwide, including the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art and de Young Museum, San Francisco, CA; Los Angeles County Museum of Art, CA; San Jose Museum of Art, CA; St. Louis Art Museum, MO; Fukuyama Museum of Art, Japan; Tate Museum of Art, London, UK; and Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, Madrid.
Goldsworthy has been the subject of several substantial monographic publications, as well as two critically acclaimed feature-length documentaries: Rivers and Tides (2002) and Leaning into the Wind (2017).