Wood

In Wood, Andy Goldsworthy evokes ideas of growth, of perpetual change, of transformation through works made of leaves, branches, ice, snow, boulders, sand. Much of his art is ephemeral: what has been drawn from nature will sooner or later merge with it again.

Six sections – Earth, Seed, Root, Branch, Leaf and Tree – are each prefaced by extracts from the artist’s working diaries.

Wood culminates in a peculiarly intimate revelation of the relationship between the artist and a particular corner of landscape in his home territory. A vast, ancient oak tree provokes a rich succession of responses as the seasons ebb and flow. The Capenoch Tree is a triumphant expression of the strong impulse now evident in Goldsworthy’s work to allow one work to lead quite directly to the next, for the dismantling of one sculpture to be the first stage in creating a new one.

Woven through the book are intriguing glimpses of a ballet, Végétal, in which dancers build, dismantle and rebuild versions of Goldsworthy’s sculptures on stage – a collaboration which draws fascinating parallels between dance and the process of making sculptures.