Andy Goldsworthy, of sticks and stones fame has done some interesting projects that raise other topics too. We mentioned, and I tried to draw, the piece which graces the cover of one of his many coffee table books, Time. Mud slathered onto a wall with carefully choreographed straw underneath appears to be even and consistent until it gradually dries and cracks according to the hidden choreography.
Time and also plays a key role in his series of silhouettes that he makes by lying his body on the ground long enough to alter it visually by preserving dew, melting frost, shielding dry ground from rain, etc. Though time is the evident device, and part of the quality of the subject, the subject itself is the physical mark of his self on the land. This is a mark that, like a mark on a map, signifies both the psychological presence of self on the land as placemarker and also the historical record of past experience though the body itself is physically absent.
2 comments:
The Andy Goldsworthy photo and the last paragraph of description really reminded me of Ana Mendieta’s work. I can’t remember if it was her intent or just how those works were read, but there was something about her having been separated from Cuba for so long and then finally being able to insert the siluetas of herself into that country’s landscape, so there were some elements of dislocation/location, marking the landscape, the physically absent body, etc.
Then I went looking around for some articles on her to refresh my memory. When I searched on her name and mapping (wishful thinking) a book called “Mapping the terrain: New Genre Public Art” came up. I don’t think it’s literally about mapping but the description said “the book acts literally as a conceptual map clarifying the recent art history and helping to define unifying traits such as strong social orientation, ecology, and new technologies.” And that sounded like some other related things we’ve been talking about (like earth works, Kate Ericson and Mel Ziegler, etc…)
Thanks for showing us her "Siluetas." I think you've put your finger on the crux of the connection between the two artists. It's not just the silhouette, the absent self, but the silhouette as a stand-in for the self in, and of, the landscape.
At least in Goldsworthy's case, the performance is a kind of mapping but the photograph becomes the map. It's the classic locational strategy of the "You Are Here" map. A generalized place and a specific location are represented relative to each other.
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