Midsummer snowballs
The Midsummer Snowballs (Eng. "Sommerschnee [balls]") is a Land Art project by the British artist Andy Goldsworthy . His intention was to shape snowballs at the end of the 20th century, freeze them and melt them so that they would release their contents in the 21st century. In June 2000, he placed 13 oversized snowballs in central London . The irritating, surprising image was intended to interrupt the everyday routine of passers-by with its paradox of snow in summer. In addition to its abstract, sculptural effect, time was also incorporated into the work as a design aspect. At the same time, a fourteenth snowball was exhibited in the Curve Gallery in London .
Goldsworthy's previous projects with snow
While studying at Preston Polytechnic from 1975 to 1978, Goldsworthy formed his first large snowball, three feet in diameter, in the woods near Leeds, Yorkshire, in January 1977. Goldsworthy rolled the ball in a meandering line through the woods. This created a dark trail, the color of which was defined by the forest floor, it was in contrast to the white color of the snow-covered ground and above all the white snowball that left this dark trail. Goldsworthy saw another paradox in the spherical snowball and the leaving of a straight line. This draws the viewer's attention to its construction.
"Goldsworthy preserves these private oblations in exquisite photographs, he is one of the very few of the recent artists in the landscape to make a virtue of fine photography. While most others feel that photographic refinement obscures the true, non-photographic content of their work , Goldsworthy rightly finds it necessary for conveying the immaculacy of his efforts. " (Eng .: "Goldsworthy perpetuates the scene in high-quality photographs, he is one of the few Land Art artists who values it. While many consider the photographic sophistication to be a concealment of the content of their work, Goldsworthy considers it necessary for perfection to convey his work. ")
In February 1979, shortly after completing his studies, Goldsworthy built another one meter high snowball and covered it with black peat soil from a nearby forest. He placed it in the middle of a frozen lake, which created the illusion of a black vacuum lying in a white vacuum, especially since Goldsworthy left no footprints on the frozen surface. It was supposed to give the impression of a structure created without human intervention, which, however, was diametrically opposed to the logical conclusion that it must have been made by someone. This project was crucial for the installation of the Midsummer Snowballs .
In Goldsworthy's work in Clapham in March 1979, he integrated other materials from nature: he attached a snowball to the branches of a tree so that they appeared to grow out of a white sphere. He colored a second snowball green by rubbing the surface with crushed leaves. In May 1981 he realized the increasing interest in moving his works into a different environment. Goldsworthy took the last remaining snow in the form of a snowball to a place where the snow had already melted. He documented the melting process through photographs, but the process was abruptly interrupted by a passerby who pushed the ball into a nearby river. The snowball did not harmonize with its surroundings, that corresponded to the reason for its creation, but also to the reason for its destruction.
The artist had the idea of wresting the snowball from its seasonal context in the winter of 1981/1982: he kept a moderately large snowball in his mother's freezer for the purpose of an exhibition of differentiated art forms in the Italianate Gardens in Tatton Park in Cheshire in the summer of 1982. There Goldsworthy exposed his snowball under the theme Sculpture for a Garden .
At the Coracle Press Gallery in April 1985 Goldsworthy exhibited a snowball containing daffodils . Placed directly on the wooden floor, the melting process took three days. All he left behind was a puddle of water with the remains of the flowers, the arrangement of which was neither planned nor ordered. He pursued this idea of integrating materials into the snowball in the following projects.
Snowball drawings
In the period from March 22, 1989 to April 20, 1989 Goldsworthy explored the snow of the Grise Fiords of the Canadian Arctic. During this expedition he discovered different types of snow: sticky, powdery, icy snow and “cold” snow, which was ideal for Goldsworthy work. Each type of snow that I use is a concentration of the weather that has formed it. (Eng: "Any kind of snow I use represents the weather that produced it in a concentrated form.") While Goldsworthy accompanied locals on a hunting trip, they hunted a seal , the blood of which soaked the snow. The artist integrated the now red snow into a snowball and let it melt on a sheet of paper. Its spiral-shaped rolling during the melting process created a spiral of blood on the paper. The snowball's meltwater soaked the paper, which actively influences the result through the resulting bulges. The snowball drawings, Goldsworthy himself titled them as '' landscape painting '', were first exhibited in 1998 in the Fruitmarket Gallery in Edinburgh .
"Midsummer Snowballs"
In 1998 Goldsworthy began planning an unusual project. He wanted to place exorbitant snowballs with seeds and other organic matter in an urban setting at the turn of the millennium. To do this, he first studied downtown Chicago to find possible places for placing the snowballs with the most unusual effect possible. The Barbican Center in London turned out to be the exhibition venue . The manner in which they were observed, and above all the observation of their change, were of interest to him. This project went hand in hand with a confidence in the Londoners, should they demolish the snowballs in a timely manner, this aspect would have been prevented. On the other hand, vulnerability and confrontation were part of the work.
construction
A total of 14 snowballs were to be constructed for the project in the winter of 1999/2000, but due to their size and weight, they should not be rolled. The first seven of the snowballs and their contents were formed in Scotland in Dumfriesshire and near Blairgowrie . As the snow melted, the hidden materials gradually emerged and ultimately remained on the floor as traces of time. Each snowball revealed its own theme just as it left its own pattern. The time it took to construct a single snowball was between three and six hours. It was dependent on the consistency of the snow: Moist snow enables a quick but also careful way of working, because on the one hand it is easy to shape, on the other hand it melts comparatively quickly. For this reason the time span for the transport to the cold storage was very limited. Powdery snow is too cold to stick and you have to wait for temperatures to rise. Goldsworty's solution to this problem was to spray water on the snow. After construction, it was transported by truck to a cold store in Dumfries . The other seven snowballs were created and stored using the same method but in Perthshire in December 1999. Each one had a diameter of about 1.5 meters and a weight of one to two tons. The way in which the materials were layered within the snowball affected how they would become visible over time. In this sense, Goldsworthy constructed not only the snowball but also its change in the course of time and the illusion of materials growing out of the snowball. The length of existence and the type of melting were related to the weather conditions, as rain, temperature differences or the sun had a divergent effect on the snow.
placement
Articulated lorries transported the 14 snowballs to the Barbican Center London on the night of June 20-21, 2000 . The installation, which takes 20 to 30 minutes each time, should begin at midnight and be completed by six in the morning so that there is no sign of the high level of effort and type of installation. The abstract appearance gave no information about its creation. The snowballs enjoyed a toneless yet subversive presence. They were placed in various places in the Barbican Center directly on the street or sidewalks, various in courtyards, behind fences or gates. The content often referred to its surroundings, for example a snowball filled with red hair from cows from the highlands could be found near the Smithfield meat market. Three other with Esch seeds , horse chestnut and cones of the Scottish Pine (engl. Scots pine cones ) were on the sidewalks of Silkstreet at the input of Barbican centers placed, two with elderberries and book branches at the station Moor gate as well as a with chalk -filled snowball in the cemetery near the Bunhill Fields . A pair containing sheep's wool and crow's feathers was in Charterhouse Square . A barbed wire snowball was displayed behind a closed gate on St. John Street for the safety of passers-by . In the garden of an old shop on Lindsey Street was a snowball with rusted bits of tools and farm machinery. At the junction of Long Lane and Lindsey Street one with was barley filled snowball placed. Goldsworthy had worked pebbles from the River Scaur Water in Scotland into a snowball in front of the London Wall . The content should remind Londoners of the origin of their food, which comes from agricultural production in their area. (Population depends, both now and in the future, on what is outside the city limits.) The fourteenth snowball was exposed on August 31, 2000, the opening day of Goldsworthy's Time exhibition , in the Curve Gallery in the Barbican Center , where it was placed directly on top of the The gallery floor was melting. It was filled with powdered red stone from a river near Goldsworthy's home. I have worked with this red all over the world - in Japan, Calfornia, France, Britain, Australia - a vein running around the earth. It has taught me about the flow, energy and life that connects one place with another. The reason why the stone is red is its iron content, which is also why our blood is red. (Eng .: "I have worked with the color red all over the world - Japan, California, France, Britain, Australia - a vein that runs through the whole world. It taught me about the flow of energy and the life that connects two places The reason for the red color of the stone is its iron content, which is also the reason for the red color of our blood. "). The red stone is sometimes the most important material for Goldsworthy, which is why he chose it for the centerpiece of this work, the exhibit in the museum.
Effect / reactions
On the morning of June 21, 2000, a midsummer day, London residents were faced with an unusual sight, which, as Goldsworthy had hoped, caused passers-by to stop. They puzzled over the origin or the purpose of the snowballs. Interest in the project grew, as did the amount of human interactions with the snowballs. The morning of June 21, 2000 was a typically English summer morning, cool and cloudy. The low temperature meant a longer melting process, provided that no physical forces were to act on the snowballs. The real opponents of the snowballs, however, were mild temperatures or rain. During the day it remained overcast, but mostly dry.
According to Goldsworthy, the greatest and most relevant influence on the finished works was the presence or influence of the public. Often times the snowballs were moved, changed or destroyed. The reactions of the residents of London were an integral part of the artwork. Other influences were the weather conditions as well as the transience of the selected materials. The duration of their existence depended on them; in the case of the Midsummer Snowballs , the weather was an elementary factor, as the snowball, which requires low temperatures, is exposed to a midsummer warmth. With the melting process, the appearance of the individual snowballs constantly changed, cursively bringing out its enclosed content, and ultimately resulting in a foreseeable, inevitable end, defined as complete melting of the snowball. Thus the Midsummer Snowballs are more of a four-dimensional than a three-dimensional work. Goldsworthy also documented the melting process, which lasted between two and four days, with videos, but the main part of the documentation are the high-quality photographs, many of which he took.
Despite the sudden and surprising appearance of the snowballs, this project only had a minimal temporary impact on its surroundings, as this effect faded as quickly as the existence of the snowballs continued. His work thus shows similarities to various other Land Art artists, for example Richard Long . Both artists value the photographic documentation of their works as well as their weathering processes. The publications in book form are, so to speak, "representatives" of the works, especially beyond the limited duration of their existence.
Documentation / literature
- Andy Goldsworthy: Midsummer Snowballs. Introduction by Judith Collins. Thames & Hudson, London 2001, ISBN 978-0-500-51065-0
- Andy Goldsworthy: Summer Snow. Introduction by Judith Collins. Translated from the English by Waltraud Götting. Two thousand and one, Frankfurt am Main 2002.
Individual evidence
- ↑ midsummer snowballs | What I Reckon. Retrieved October 18, 2017 (English).
- ^ John Beardsley: Earthworks and Beyond . Abbeville Press, 1998, pp. 50 .
- ^ Andy Goldsworthy: Touching North . 1989.
- ^ Andy Goldsworthy. Bodman. 2000.