Just watched Rivers and Tides again. I have an affinity for his conception of a piece of art as never complete, but rather being completed (or destroyed, or reformed) after the artist is involved. Somewhat reminiscient perhaps of some process music (especially Reich and Eno’s tape machine expliots, see It’s Gonna Rain). Though much of his work is tremendously labor-intensive, he achieves a sense of cohesion with the environments in which he works such that that in many ways the art seems as ‘natural’ and the nature surrounding it. Which is really the idea behind Eno’s hospital-bound ambient epiphany right? But I dont want to write about Eno today.
Goldsworthys project is taking a work “to the edge of its collapse”. And his works do literally collapse many times in the film. It’s an oddly un-minimalist impluse in who may seem like a quite minimalist artist (he is using just stick, stones, leaves etc.). But perhaps he is forging a place where minimalism and maximalism can play off of eachother. I am thinking of Panda Bear’s excellent new 12″ Bro’s. The song essentially repeats the same melodies for 12 mintues. The reverb on the track, however, is brilliant, out of control, and hardly as measured as the song’s structure. See also Polmo Polpo’s “Kiss Me Again and Again” for a disco song working in similar terrian. But maybe I am confusing duration with minimalism. Whatever.
The point is see Rivers and Tides. It is gorgeous and inspiring, and everything the urban art establishment is not.
