Ogunquit’s Barn Gallery presents ‘Rivers and Tides’

“When I make a work, I often take it to the very edge of its collapse, and that’s a very beautiful balance,” sculptor Andy Goldsworthy states in the documentary “Rivers and Tides,” which played at the Barn Gallery in Ogunquit, Maine, on July 25.

Sometimes he takes it over the edge. During a segment early in the film, Goldsworthy watches a stone sculpture collapse four times before he gets it right. He is constructing an approximately six-foot cone of rock on the beach, racing against the clock to complete the piece before it is engulfed by the incoming tide. But a single misplaced stone can thwart several hours of work, causing the entire structure to crumble.

Goldsworthy remains relatively calm when the sculpture collapses for the fourth time, but he cannot completely mask his frustration. After a few deep breaths, he puts a positive spin on his repeated failures. With each attempt, the sculpture reached a slightly taller height before it collapsed—a sign that he is achieving a greater understanding of the stones.

Following this explanation, the film cuts to a shot of the finished product, successfully completed the next day. The stone sculpture, which seems to defy the laws of physics—but actually demonstrates the manifestation of those laws—stands like a stone guardian on the shore. The cameras show the tide incrementally rising and ultimately submerging Goldsworthy’s freshly completed sculpture. When the water recedes, the pinecone shaped object is still there.

Throughout the 2001 film, “Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working With Time,” the Scottish artist explains how nature interacts with his sculptures, bringing new dimensions of meaning to each piece, and often destroying it in the process. Goldsworthy has achieved fame with coffee table books and public works of art made almost entirely from organic materials he collects and molds himself. He uses stones, leaves, flower petals, driftwood, icicles, daisies, twigs, snow and other raw materials to create artworks of a very temporary nature. Instead of paint, the pigment of a stone or leaf provides colors more brilliant than any oil-on-canvas work. He uses ice as an adhesive and pins leaves together with thorns. He piles up logs and driftwood to construct designs with as much architectural integrity as a skyscraper.

But what makes “Rivers and Tides” so mesmerizing is the blending of two art forms: Goldsworthy’s sculpting and director Thomas Riedelsheimer’s filmmaking. Riedelsheimer worked with Goldsworthy for more than a year to make the documentary, filming the meticulous processes behind pieces that took hours, days or weeks to create. The cinematography reveals each piece as a slowly developing creature, beginning with its incipient life as a collection of naturally occurring items and stretching through its maturation into a captivating sculpture.

The camera exposes finished pieces with slow, bit-by-bit frames, following the snaking motion of a long stone wall that weaves between trees and dips into a river, then offering a full panoramic view of the several-hundred-yard wall. Such scenes are accompanied by music that can only be described as curious, as if the instruments, too, are wondering what the project will look like in its entirety.

As viewers enjoy a candid glimpse into Goldsworthy’s creative process, it is easy to forget how much the film itself contributes to the artistry. A few dozen people watched the film at the Barn Gallery last week, and their satisfaction with the cinematography was evident from their excited murmurs when a full piece was revealed.

Were it not for the cameramen, many of Goldsworthy’s sculptures would never be seen by anyone other than himself. Because he uses materials with a natural life cycle, each work is subject to the changes and transitions imbued by their environment. The sculptures themselves often go through an aging process, altered by the forces that surround each bare element. As cracks form in clay or dying leaves change color, the sculptures evolve in unpredictable ways. Eventually, the work is unrecognizable. But like anything in nature, it has not died but merely taken on a new form.

This concept is marvelously demonstrated when Goldsworthy builds a large dome out of driftwood on a riverbank. When the tide comes in, the river rises and sets the sculpture afloat, carrying it downstream, still intact. As the camera follows the dome, it gradually comes apart, destroying the sculpture while setting the driftwood on a new course in its long existence. When Goldsworthy pins together a long trail of green leaves and sets it coiled in a creek, the current gradually unwinds it and sends it snaking through the water like an eel. Again, Goldsworthy has yielded his art to the forces of nature, which modify it in ways he could not have imagined.

In the film, Goldsworthy explains that he does not create artwork to be destroyed. Rather, he offers the artwork to nature, surrendering the sculpture—and his very personal contact with it—to the power of the sea, the river or the air. Only by capturing the works on film or in photographs can Goldsworthy share these subtle yet profound images with appreciative art fans around the world.

Goldsworthy’s artwork also expresses the deep connection between nature and humankind. He spends hours crushing red river stones into a fine powder, then releases it into the current, turning a waterfall and the pool of water below from clear to blood red. Goldsworthy notes that the iron content that turned the stones red also makes human blood the same color. It is this connection with the liquid in our veins that makes the sight of the red waterfall so striking, he surmises.

The crushed stone artworks also illustrate a number of other concepts, such as the hidden fluidity of rock and the indestructible solidity of water. As Goldsworthy notes, his alterations to the rock represent yet another shift in a multi-million year existence of constant transformation. As the artist’s calm, accented voice explains his artistic theories, the film illustrates his points with shots of rivers flowing, waves crashing and misty landscapes rolling.

The sculptor’s thick Scottish roots also influence his artwork. A segment of the film shows Goldsworthy interacting with his wife and children in his hometown of Penpont, Scotland. He later ventures out into the countryside and begins picking daisies for a project, stopping along the way to chat with neighbors. After observing the birth of two lambs, he reflects on how sheep have altered the Scottish landscape, keeping the fields treeless with their grazing. He delicately lines a stone wall with a layer of cotton, leaving a temporary imprint produced by a combination of the sheep, the wall and himself.

Goldsworthy’s fragile sculptures are essentially arrangements of nature that draw viewers’ attention to the splendor and majesty of the world that surrounds them. But his work also helps him learn about himself. As the cameras film his dirty, bandaged fingers manipulating the stalks of plants to create a spectacular web, it is obvious that he has embraced his connection to nature. Even when the web collapses and he stares at the ground in silent frustration, he seems to be at peace with himself and his surroundings. Above all else, Goldsworthy and Riedelsheimer show that nature, in itself, is a vast piece of art in which we all have a part, whether we realize it or not.

The Art Video Series continues at the Barn Gallery on Wednesday, Aug. 1, with “Sketches of Frank Gehry Sydney Pollack” and returns the following Wednesday, Aug. 8, with “George Seurat: Point Counterpoint.” For other installments of the series, visit www.ogunquitnow.com.