Lelong

In White Walls, Andy Goldsworthy will cover the entirety of the walls in the main space of Galerie Lelong with a smooth, white porcelain that will dry and crack over the course of the exhibition. Regeneration, presence and absence, and the passage of time—hallmarks of Goldsworthy’s work—are pervasive forces in what is his sixth exhibition at Galerie Lelong. The final touches will be made to the walls in the early hours of Tuesday, May 8, before the gallery opens to the public. A reception will be held on Saturday, May 12, from 6 to 8 pm, and the artist will be present.

Over the course of several days, moist porcelain from Cornwall, U.K., where the artist was born, will be laid over the gallery walls—covering an expanse 13 feet in height and over 140 feet in length. Once completed and uncovered on May 8, the room will appear empty. Then, slowly, the clay will begin to dry and crack throughout the surface. The manner in which the clay will crack and, subsequently, fall from the wall is uncertain; unpredictability and probability have remained principal elements in Goldsworthy’s work. The work will, in the artist’s words, move from minimal to expressionistic. What begins as a quiet refuge in the city becomes an alive, active site.

Also on view will be two new films, a medium rarely explored by Goldsworthy. In the films the artist creates ephemeral silhouette figures in rain and snow, works that he refers to as “shadows” and can be seen before in his photographic works. The gradual transformation and disappearance of the artist’s markings echo the themes evident in the clay work—the natural effects of time on matter, and the beauty in loss and renewal of all forms.

In a career spanning three decades, Andy Goldsworthy has become one of the most prominent and iconic artists of our time. Permanent, site-specific installations can be seen at the National Gallery of Art, Washington, D.C.; de Young Museum, San Francisco; Museum of Jewish Heritage, New York; Storm King Art Center, Mountainville, NY; Aspen Institute, Aspen, CO; Stanford University, Stanford, CA; and Scripps Research Institute, La Jolla, CA. In 2007, Goldsworthy is the subject of two major museum exhibitions: Yorkshire Sculpture Park, West Bretton, U.K., on view through next January; and the Palacio de Cristal at the Museo Nacional Reina Sofia, Madrid, Spain, which opens in October. Also in October, Abrams Books will publish Enclosure, its ninth monograph of Goldsworthy’s work.