Andy Goldsworthy Quotes

Just as the development of earth art and installation art stemmed from the idea of taking art out of the galleries, the basis of my involvement with public art is a continuation of wall drawings.

Find the most puzzling kind of art you can think of, and then go out and try to approximate it with your camera. Take a photograph that corresponds to it. (Assignment to students.)

I was interested in making work that physically changed as it circulated through the art world.

We have created indoor installations inside museums, like the Wrapped Floor at the Museum of Contemporary Art in Chicago in 1968, and not monumental at all by any standards.

For the general public, my work is sometimes easier than a painting because there is someone addressing you; it can actually be a relief. What's interesting is the idea of a tourist randomly coming in and the experience they'll have.

I'm trying to expand the notion of curating. Exhibitions need not only take place in galleries, need not only involve displaying objects. Art can appear where we expect it least.

Now, to describe the process of the Wrapped Reichstag, which went from 1971 to '95, there is an entire book about that, because each one of our projects has its own book. The book is not an art book, meaning it's not written by an art historian.

But at the beginning it was clear to me that concrete poetry was peculiarly suited for using in public settings. This was my idea, but of course I never really much got the chance to do it.

The problem with doing physically ambitious art is that to view it, you still have to be in your physical body.

I'm not really interested in creating things to be seen inside a private gallery. I'm interested in creating things that are all around us, that engage us. I just find the things that I respond to are useful.

I have a passion for modern and contemporary art.

You are an artist. What work of art will you leave behind?

I'm in favor of an art that does something other than just sit on its ass in a museum.

I like the idea of the artist going out in the world, creating a dialogue.

I like to use the audience as my color palette, my instrument.

The modern artist is working with space and time, and expressing his feelings rather than illustrating.

My philosophy is that I'm an artist. I perform an art not with a paint brush or a camera. I perform with bodily movement. Instead of exhibiting my art in a museum or a book or on canvas, I exhibit my art in front of the multitudes.

The idea of a 'happening' is that there is little distance between the viewer and it, whatever 'it' is. It's an experience that's on-going and evolving.

Performance art can involve the audience with taste, smell and sounds not available with electronic media and not practical with conventional theater. This is due to the usually small audience.

I think 21st century should be art without objects.

I'd paint long strips of canvas and abandon them on the beach, or put bread out in geometric patterns for the pigeons downtown. I wanted people to find something nice and intriguing to puzzle over. Then I'd go back to see if the things were still there, or if anyone would notice.

I used to stand on the corner in San Diego with poems sticking out of my hip pocket, asking people if there was a place where I could read poems. The audience is half of the poem.

When you come into my pieces, it's not an intellectual experience, it's a physical experience. It's coming at your body. There's light, there's sound, the lights in some pieces are going on and off. There's loud roaring sound happening.

I'd been doing projects outdoors for the public. I made pigeons eat geometry by putting bread out in rhomboids and triangles. I don't know if this activity made sense, but the work was available.

Sculpture occupies the same space as your body.