Friday Links

Donald Kinney's show comes down this weekend and I highly recommend that you get over to see it while you can. This is one of the best best photography shows that I have seen in a long time in one of the most beautiful libraries in the Bay Area. Donald poetic eye and feeling for the Northern California landscape needs to be seen to be fully appreciated.  Mill Valley Library, 375 Throckmorton, Lower Level
http://www.examiner.com/article/donald-kinney-exhibits-his-photographs-of-marin-county

Land artist Walter De Maria dies of stroke, aged 77

The “uncompromising” creator of The Lightning Field and The New York Earth Room shied away from the spotlight. He studied history and art at the University of California, Berkeley from 1953 to 1959. Trained as a painter, De Maria soon turned to sculpture and began using other media. De Maria and his friend, the avant-garde composer La Monte Young, participated in "Happenings." and theatrical productions in the San Francisco area. One of his Boxes for Meaningless Work (1961) is inscribed with the instructions, “Transfer things from one box to the next box back and forth, back and forth, etc. Be aware that what you are doing is meaningless.”

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Walter_De_Maria

http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Land-artist-Walter-De-Maria-dies-of-stroke-aged-/30150

The artist Andy Goldsworthy is creating a new work for the Presidio of San Francisco, the national park that was formerly a military base. The artist will hang a felled tree covered in cracked clay from the ceiling of a building within the park that was once used by the Army to store explosives.

According to the Presidio Trust’s website, Tree Fall will be “a fully reversible” work installed in the Powder Magazine building, “a small (25 feet by 30 feet) and currently inaccessible masonry structure”. “The gunpowder room would’ve been a fairly dangerous place to be, so [the work] will have that sense of caution to it,” Goldsworthy says. Due to be completed by the end of August, Tree Fall will be the artist’s third project in the park, following Spire, 2008, and Wood Line, 2011.

“What I find so fascinating about the Presidio is that, in the heart of this military machine, there was a huge planting programme,” Goldsworthy says, referring to the fact that the park’s 300-acre forest was planted by the US military between 1886 and 1900. “They had quite a sophisticated sense of landscape,” he says. “They read the landscape in the way that sculptors do—or at least the way I do.”

http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Andy-Goldsworthy-to-make-third-work-for-San-Francisco-Presidio/30137

Amazon gets into the act and launches a virtual art gallery. http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/-Amazon-to-launch-virtual-art-gallery/29989

Another theft of art from a museum. Did somebody declare July "Art Theft Month" and not tell the rest of us? Thieves stole ten paintings from the Van Buuren Museum on the outskirts of Brussels on 16 July, including Kees van Dongen’s The Thinker, 1907, valued at more than €1m. What makes the loss particularly poignant is that the paintings came from a family collection, lovingly assembled by the Van Buurens.             
http://www.theartnewspaper.com/articles/Ten-paintings-stolen-from-Brussels-museum/30123 

The saga of the theft from the Dutch museum gets sadder and crazier - apparently it only took them 3 minutes to break in. And then, mommy dearest burned the art to protect her son. I guess that priceless art isn't so priceless when you don't have a buyer.
http://artdaily.com/news/63996/Three-minutes--pliers-all-spectacular-Dutch-art-heist-suspects-needed--prosecutors-#.UfKqrlOYUXw

Andy Goldsworthy in the Presidio

Andy Goldsworthy, British sculptor, photographer, and environmentalist who creates his work from natural and found objects has produced a new piece for San Francisco. Titled “Spire” the sculpture can be found in the Presidio, just inside the Arguello Gate and across the street from Inspiration Point. The work was commissioned by the Presidio Trust and constructed in late October under the direction of Goldsworthy.

I stopped by the site today with artist Anna Conti. It was easy to find the spire. The 37 steel armature supported cypress trees pointed its way to the sky in the clearing before us. We had to jay walk and then follow a makeshift path through the trees to the sculpture. It stands in the middle of a fenced in area, obviously not finished and open to the public. Surrounded by heavy moving equipment, a large pile of rocks, and upturned soil the work stands as a sentinel, reflecting the majesty of a church spire and the Transamerica Pyramid. As we studied the piece we wondered how it was supported. The Goldsworthy pieces we have seen in the past were all made to be temporary, this seemed intended to be a permanent piece. It wasn’t until I got home and looked up the project on the Internet that I learned the trees were taken from the site (older trees cut down for reforestation), and secured below ground in a metal and concrete base. This will not be a Goldsworthy sculpture that blows away in a thunderstorm!

One of the interesting discoveries in visiting the site was the 40 or so impromptu found wood sculptures surrounding the outside of the fence. I don’t know if Goldsworthy, his assistants, students, or fans of his work created the pieces but they were a wonderful surprise.

On November 14th an exhibit related to “Spire” opens at the Presidio Officers Club. It contains drawings, photographs, a model of the sculpture, and information bringing more insight into the project. The show is free and runs through May 3, 2009. I don’t know exactly when the sculpture itself will be officially unveiled to the public, but it is scheduled to open after the planting of new trees in the area between now and the end of December.

More information on the show at the Presidio Trust:
http://www.presidio.gov/calendar/spire.htm

Interview with Goldsworthy by San Francisco Chronicle's Kenneth Baker:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2008/10/25/DDBV13N4GP.DTL&hw=Goldsworthy+Presidio&sn=001&sc=1000