Hell, I forgot to mention the only major outing Mrs. Obscurity and I have undertaken in the last few weeks: Andy Goldsworthy's exhibit at the Austin Museum of Art on Sunday.
We pushed Rivers and Tides up on our Netflix queue and saw it on Friday. One of my friends has been gushing about how incredible this guy's work is for well over a year, and I'm happy to say that he's absolutely correct. I love this. Goldsworthy works with found natural materials to create artwork that is ephemeral by design. One of my favorite things about the movie is the tendency to focus on Goldsworthy's hands, which are absolutely trashed by his work. My least favorite thing is the repeated interviews in which Goldsworthy tries to explain his art by saying, "It's my way of understanding X." Blah, art-talk bullshit. His wife quietly deflates him in a nice scene, and he completely lets loose with his real personality, which is nice.
Anyway, here's some Goldsworthy pictures. This is a whirlpool made of driftwood that's about to be carried off by the tide:
This is a piece made of straw and thorns that falls apart during filming:
One of his eggs, this one of ice. Amazing:
He photographs his sculptures and gives the photos long, Zen-like poetry names. I kept expecting one to be called:
crushed foot under heavy stone
fucking thing fell apart fifteen times
goddamn shit
'cause profanity is funny.
4 comments:
What did you think of the big rectangle of sticks with the circle of darker sticks that was reproduced in the back room? (This is a leading question - I think it's a joke, but no-one else I've spoken to has gotten it, so I may be reading more into it than is there.)
If it's a joke, I don't get it. I was surprised that he'd burnt the darker parts after all that talk in the movie about using the hay roots and the fire from the earth and all that jazz for that dark circle.
Well, most of the photos were of works he'd made in Japan. And the sticks were arranged into a rectangle of light material with a circle of darker material at the center...
You're completely right! I didn't catch that at all, but it was definitely the shape of a Japanese flag.
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