Andy Goldsworthy on the Roof

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Andy Goldsworthy with Stone Houses (2004) during installation. The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York, The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden. (Andy Goldsworthy, Stone Houses, 2004, wood and stone, Courtesy of the artist and Galerie Lelong. © Andy Goldsworthy; courtesy Galerie Lelong). Photography by Teresa Christiansen. Photograph Studio, The Metropolitan Museum of Art, New York. More About This Exhibition British sculptor Andy Goldsworthy (born 1956), known for working in, and with, the natural landscape, was invited by The Metropolitan Museum of Art to create the sculpture installation for The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden. His work was on view from May 4, 2004, through October 31, 2004. "Andy Goldsworthy on the Roof" consisted of two monumental, organic domes of wood and stone, inspired by the immediate surroundings of Central Park and its architectural setting. This special project was exhibited in the 10,000-square-foot open-air space that offers spectacular views across Central Park to the Manhattan skyline. It was one in a series of solo-artist installations presented on the Cantor Roof Garden, and the first to be constructed on-site by the artist. The installation was made possible by a grant from Cynthia Hazen Polsky, Leon B. Polsky, and the Lita A. Hazen Charitable Trust. More About the Works on View More About the Artist Educational Programs Exhibition Organizer More About The Cantor Roof Garden

More About the Works on View
Goldsworthy constructed two thirteen-and-a-half-foot-tall columns of balanced stones, each surrounded by an octagonal dome—eighteen feet in height and twenty-four feet in diameter—of split rails. Made from materials gleaned in rural landscapes, the sculpture, Stone Houses (2004), invited viewers to peer through the wood domes to see the stacked, tapered stone spires sheltered within. The granite stones, the largest of which weighed one-and-a-half tons, were from the beaches of Glenluce in Luce Bay, southern Scotland, and the split rails of northern white cedar came from New England agricultural sources.

Stone Houses, which the artist intended to "command the space" of the Roof Garden, was envisioned as "an exploration of the relationship between stone and wood... [with] stone the more fragile partner—protected by the [guardian wood rails]—just as trees often hold together and protect the landscape in which they grow." Inherent in these seemingly simple forms were the implicit power, beauty, mystery, and elemental aspects of nature, marked by the passage of time and by human contact.

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More About the Artist
Born in Cheshire, England, Goldsworthy studied fine art at the Bradford College of Art (1974–75) in Yorkshire and at Preston Polytechnic in Lancashire (1975–78), where he earned a Bachelor of Arts degree. He worked as a farm laborer outside Leeds from the age of thirteen and made his first constructions in stone in the late 1970s. He has worked in and of the land for the past twenty-five years, creating sculpture—much of it ephemeral—from such found materials as wood, stone, snow, ice, reeds, leaves, flowers, sand, and mud.

Permanent sculptures by Goldsworthy in the United States include Storm King Wall, 1997–98, at the Storm King Art Center (Mountainville, NY); Stone River, 2001, at Stanford University (Stanford, CA); Three Cairns, 2001–2, at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego, the Des Moines Art Center, and the Neuberger Museum of Art (Purchase, NY); and Garden of Stones, 2003, at the Museum of Jewish Heritage (New York, NY).

Goldsworthy has produced numerous site-specific works and commissions in the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and Asia; has had solo museum exhibitions in the United States, Europe, Canada, and Japan; and is the subject of a documentary film, Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time, which was released in 2001.

Recording the ephemeral works in photographs is an important part of Goldsworthy's process. Eight books on his work have been published by Harry N. Abrams, Inc.; among them are Hand to Earth: Andy Goldsworthy Sculpture, 1976–1990 (1990), Andy Goldsworthy: A Collaboration with Nature (1990), Stone/Andy Goldsworthy (1994), Wood/Andy Goldsworthy (1996), Wall (2000), and Time (2000).

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Educational Programs
The exhibition was accompanied by a brochure and related educational programs, including screenings of the documentary film Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working with Time.

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Exhibition Organizer
"Andy Goldworthy" on the Roof was organized by Anne L. Strauss, assistant curator in the Department of Modern Art of The Metropolitan Museum of Art.

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More About The Cantor Roof Garden
The Iris and B. Gerald Cantor Roof Garden opened to the public in 1987. Annual installations have featured selections of modern sculpture from the Museum's collection and, more recently, presentations of works by the artists Ellsworth Kelly (1998), Magdalena Abakanowicz (1999), David Smith (2000), Joel Shapiro (2001), Claes Oldenburg and Coosje van Bruggen (2002), and Roy Lichtenstein (2003).

The Cantor Roof Garden is open to the public from May through late fall, as weather permits. Sandwiches and beverage service—including espresso, cappuccino, iced tea, soft drinks, wine and beer—are available at the Roof Garden daily from 10:00 a.m. until closing. For more information on the Roof Garden Café, see Dining at the Met.

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