Talk about art that is written on the wind and then gone with it.
Thomas Riedelsheimer's "Rivers and Tides," subtitled "Andy Goldsworthy Working With Time," is a documentary about a Scottish landscape sculptor whose craft is designed to be ephemeral.
Using natural resources such as flower petals, rocks, icicles and sticks, Goldsworthy constructs objects -- often serpentine -- such as a daisy chain of leaves fastened with toothpicks and then places them in a stream to observe them curling and flowing.
He photographs or films the objects during and after completion and then leaves them in place in a forest or on a beach or puts them in a river or stream for nature to sweep them off or blow them away.
Working with fragile mounds of stones or rocks, Goldsworthy often seems like someone playing Blockhead or any game in which players add one piece at a time until the structure topples, testing his patience and teaching him.
He might do a spider web of twigs between tree branches.
His art is a distinctive twist on the sand castles children build and watch wash away. He does what he does to observe the process that occurs afterward without his interference.
"Art for me is a kind of nourishment ... the idea of flowing nature ... The very thing that brings the work (of art) to life is the thing that will cause its death."
An aesthetic worth embracing⢠Most moviegoers who indulge the film for 90 minutes will be held by the artist's differentness, even as they wonder what kind of a sensibility would spend days constructing "a gift to the sea." Who would DO thisâ¢
In an era when very few documentaries satisfy the rudimentaries of the genre - providing background and information, "Rivers and Tides" notices only incidentally and after quite a while that Goldsworthy has a wife and four children in Penpont, Scotland.
He seems to be as gentle and introspective a man as the late Fred Rogers as he goes about re-arranging landscapes ever so slightly, bringing brief order to chaos, before currents and winds and warmth erode the distinctive work.
Additional Information:
Movie Details
'Rivers and Tides'Director: Thomas Riedelsheimer.
MPAA rating: Unrated, but G in nature.
Now playing: Manor in Squirrel Hill.
