36 DIGS.NET
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2.21.2020
P R O F I L E | M U S E U M S T O V I S I T N O W
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PHOTOGRAPHS
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COURTESY
OF
GABE
HOPKINS
The Nelson-Atkins
Museum of Art
Acclaimed British artist Andy
Goldsworthy marks the passage of
time with a subversive work recalling
centuries-old wall building.
O
n its face, the heartland of America might seem a
peculiar location for a site-specific installation by
a British artist who directed its construction by UK
craftsmen with U.S. assistants. But these, and some 150
tons of stone, are the components of Andy Goldsworthy's
remarkable "Walking Wall."
Located on the campus of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of
Art in Kansas City and snaking across 5 acres, "Walking
Wall" is a disruption in many forms, not the least of which is its
improbable end—partly inside and outside of the museum. It
also marks evergreen territory for Goldsworthy who, prior to
the Nelson-Atkins installation, completed his first work in the
genre, "Give and Take Wall," in Scotland in 1989, followed by
a wall construction inspired by a Norman Nicholson poem
in Cumbria, England, and the iconic "Storm King Wall" in
New York. Like those works, "Walking Wall" not only depicts
Goldsworthy's concern for what is being made but its actual
making, as well. As a man deeply preoccupied with building,
Goldsworthy puts enormous energy into the craftsmanship of
a thing and sourcing the right material; for this project, freshly
quarried stone that would connect "Walking Wall" to the more
weathered walls in the vicinity of the Nelson-Atkins. His
search led him to Flint Hills Stone, a generational family
farm in Kansas, for stone that he mixed into the wall.
Named for the moving of stone by hand, "Walking
Wall" is, finally, an environmental work of art where the
artist's primary material is of utmost primacy to the artist
himself—nature. nelson-atkins.org
"Walking Wall"
is a disruption
in many forms,
not the least of
which is its
improbable end—
partly inside
and outside of
the museum.
