Photo:Hans Silvester               Andy Goldsworthy              Photo: Hans Silvester

    The Omo of Ethiopia               Live and Dead Leaves           The Omo of Ethiopia

I  believe Andy Goldsworthy’s art epitomizes the particular kind of beauty. It affirms the alien-status of contemporary (sub)urbanites.

While humans appear on all accountings of life on planet Earth, Goldsworthy’s constructions and photographs challenge the popular notion that we humans belong to nature as much as nematodes and antelopes. It seems to me there is more to belonging to nature than being products of the multi-millennia evolutionary forces, and surviving into adulthood to bear and raise our young.

Extolling Goldsworthy’s site-specific work reveals a delight in beauty based upon abstract principles, not intimate actualities. It serves an audience that satisfies its survival needs through elaborate technological, mediated, global interventions. Its relationship to the habitats it occupies is so remote; this audience typically behaves like tourists in their own homeland.

Today I discovered photographs of artistry by the Omo people of Ethiopia. Their version of beauty is penetrating and in-dwelling. 

Consider the differences:

- Whereas Goldsworthy’s art is derived from brief visit to a site by a lone individual, the Omo people’s art emerges from an entire culture inhabiting land that they have supported, and that has supported them, for generations.

- Goldsworthy initiates each work by undertaking a process of exploration and discovery. He must search for material opportunities for color, form, texture, and scale, and assess light, moisture, wind, and temperature conditions. In contrast, lifelong familiarity is core to the Omo’s creative process. The materials, tools, and conditions they extract from their site also supply their nourishment, protection, fiber, fuel, and shelter, as well as their stories, rituals, and belief systems.They are already skilled, knowledgeable, and confident.

- Goldsworthy seems to initiate each work with the intention of accomplishing a remarkable feat. This entails overcoming obstacles such as rising tides or defying limitations to his artistic intentions such as gravity, wilting, melting, etc.  Familiarity gained by life-long practice and cultural tradition permits the Omo people to be comfortably and exuberantly spontaneous.  

The beauty of the Omo proclaims their connections to the vastness of the living Earth’s genealogies and lineages as much as Goldsworthy’s beauty proclaims his and our alienation from them.They are both cultural reflections worthy of consideration.

Hans Silvester                 Andy Goldsworthy          Hans Silvester

The Omo of Ethiopia       Live and Dead Leaves    The Omo of Ethiopia

While humans appear on all accountings of life on planet Earth, Goldsworthy’s constructions and photographs challenge the popular notion that we humans belong to nature as much as nematodes and antelopes. It seems to me there is more to belonging to nature than being products of the multi-millennia evolutionary forces, and surviving into adulthood to bear and raise our young.

Extolling Goldsworthy’s site-specific work reveals a delight in beauty based upon abstract principles, not intimate actualities. It serves an audience that satisfies its survival needs through elaborate technological, mediated, global interventions. Its relationship to the habitats it occupies is so remote; this audience typically behaves like tourists in their own homeland.

Today I discovered photographs of artistry by the Omo people of Ethiopia. Their version of beauty is penetrating and in-dwelling. 

Consider the differences:

- Whereas Goldsworthy’s art is derived from brief visit to a site by a lone individual, the Omo people’s art emerges from an entire culture inhabiting land that they have supported, and that has supported them, for generations.

- Goldsworthy initiates each work by undertaking a process of exploration and discovery. He must search for material opportunities for color, form, texture, and scale, and assess light, moisture, wind, and temperature conditions. In contrast, lifelong familiarity is core to the Omo’s creative process. The materials, tools, and conditions they extract from their site also supply their nourishment, protection, fiber, fuel, and shelter, as well as their stories, rituals, and belief systems.They are already skilled, knowledgeable, and confident.

- Goldsworthy seems to initiate each work with the intention of accomplishing a remarkable feat. This entails overcoming obstacles such as rising tides or defying limitations to his artistic intentions such as gravity, wilting, melting, etc.  Familiarity gained by life-long practice and cultural tradition permits the Omo people to be comfortably and exuberantly spontaneous.  

The beauty of the Omo proclaims their connections to the vastness of the living Earth’s genealogies and lineages as much as Goldsworthy’s beauty proclaims his and our alienation from them.They are both cultural reflections worthy of consideration.

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