Goldsworthy and Koons: Sculpture and Senses

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Goldsworthy provokes the audience to “look beneath the surface of things” by exploring his connection with the environment using materials from nature to convey his ideas. The earth artist utilises found tools and objects from the natural world to execute his ideas and intentions. He incorporates the “lifeblood of nature” through the notions of movement, change, light, growth, and decay. The sculpture, Rowan Leaves and Hole offers an insight into the beauty of nature encapsulated by fragile leaves, and the strong gradation of colour that depicts notions of growth and decay. The black hole, a significant motif of his work, manipulates one’s perception of nature by introducing a metaphoric window into the energies trapped below its surface. Throughout his artmaking he believes to understand nature, one must physically experience its tactile, visual, and eternal energies. This results in a somewhat primitive approach towards artmaking reflecting his sympathetic contact with the natural world and personal belief to make no permanent mark on the land. The transitory nature of Goldsworthy’s artmaking challenges the concept of the art object. The only evidence of his artmaking, captured using photographic documentation, cannot replace the physical beauty and the energies of the artwork that once existed. Therefore, Goldsworthy’s use of materials and techniques convey an insight into his artmaking connection with the environment.

Similarly, Goldsworthy conveys the lifeblood of nature through his unconventional use of materials and techniques. Goldsworthy seeks to understand nature by direct participation. He uses natural resources as his tools and mediums to produce his works, e.g. stones, leafs, feathers and thorns. This relationship...

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...ns’ nostalgic panoramic view of society. In other works, Koons also combines sculpture with appropriation to create glossy reproductions and realistic oil paintings that commentary his views of society. Puppy holds a godlike quality that is beautiful yet also baroque, as some flowering plants shoot out of the control of the creator. The empowering sculpture is one of many artworks made possible by a team of about 120 assistants. These assistants work under the uncalculated vision of ‘Walt Koons’ to create god-like hyper-kitsch replicas, “Intellectually I control the object completely…But I don’t physically do the manipulation...it’s the same when I was eight years old, where somebody is making this, that then I take home”. Therefore, Koons’ choice of materials and techniques allow him to portray the ideas and intentions explored throughout his conceptual practice.

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