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For immediate release The Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust and Public Art Fund announce... Andy Goldsworthy's Permanent commission for Memorial Garden completed at Lower Manhattan
Museum Opens September 17, 2003 New York, NY (August 25, 2003) - On September 17, Andy Goldsworthy's first permanent commission in New York City, Garden of Stones, will open to the public at the Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust. Garden of Stones, an eloquent garden plan of trees growing from stone, is Goldsworthy's design for the Memorial Garden, an outdoor space that is a central feature of the Museum's new Robert M. Morgenthau Wing. The garden was commissioned by the Museum and organized by the Public Art Fund. The Memorial Garden is a contemplative space dedicated to the memory of those who perished in the Holocaust and honoring those who survived. For Garden of Stones, Goldsworthy worked with nature's most elemental materials - stone, trees, and soil - to create a garden that is the artist's metaphor for the tenacity and fragility of life. Eighteen boulders form a series of narrow pathways in the Memorial Garden's 4,150-square-foot space. A single dwarf oak sapling emerges from the top of each boulder, growing straight from the stone. As the trees mature in the coming years, each will grow to become a part of the stone, its trunk widening and fusing to the base. A press preview and ceremonial planting with Andy Goldsworthy will
be held on September 17 Andy Goldsworthy will give a lecture about Garden of Stones at 7:30 p.m on Wednesday, September 17. Admission is $10 for adults, $7 for seniors, and $5 for students. Call 212-945-0039 for tickets. Garden of Stones reflects the inherent tension between the ephemeral and the timeless, between young and old, and between the unyielding and the pliable. More importantly, it demonstrates how elements of nature can survive in seemingly impossible places. In Jewish tradition, stones are often placed on graves as a sign of remembrance. Here, Goldsworthy brings stone and trees together as a representation of life cycles intertwined. As a living memorial, the garden is a tribute to the hardship, struggle, tenacity, and survival experienced by those who endured the Holocaust. This contemplative space, meant to be revisited and experienced differently over time as the garden matures, is visible from almost every floor of the Museum. The effect of time on humans and nature, a key factor in Goldsworthy's work, is richly present in Garden of Stones, as the sculpture will be viewed, as well as cared for, by future generations. As with his previous permanent works, which are typically site-inspired, Goldsworthy noted that Garden of Stones draws inspiration from its local surroundings: "One of the most powerful images I have of New York was staying in a hotel on Broadway. My room was high up in the building, I think on the 17th floor. I looked out of the window of my room and I saw a tree that had seeded itself, growing out of the side of the building opposite. It was for me a potent image of nature's ability to grow, even in the most difficult circumstances." Garden of Stones: The Process Most of the boulders he selected had been removed from nearby farmlands hundreds of years ago, something that appealed to Goldsworthy since there was a tradition of human involvement with the stone. "My working of the stones is a continuation of the journey these stones have made. They have a history of movement, struggle, and change which I hope will resonate with the garden." He chose to include eighteen boulders in part because of the number's symbolic significance: In Hebrew every letter also possesses a number value. Chai, whose number value is 18, is the Hebrew word for life, and is known to many in the traditional toast "L'chaim" - to life! In all of Goldsworthy's works, the process of selecting and becoming familiar with the natural materials he uses is a key element of the work itself. For Garden of Stones, he researched several different methods of hollowing the stones, including coring, water jet cutting, and burning with a flame torch. "I rarely repeat a work twice, so each work is a step into the unknown," he has said. He chose the flame torch method, in part because it was the most efficient, but also because granite is a fire-formed stone: Goldsworthy saw an affinity between the way the stone came into being and the way in which it became part of Garden of Stones. This spectacular technique melted away the interior of the stones, transforming solid granite into molten liquid. For the trees, Goldsworthy selected a species of dwarf oak, Quercus prinoides. The trees will begin as small saplings, and over the course of decades will grow to be around 12 feet tall. "Amidst the mass of stone the trees will appear as fragile, vulnerable flickers of life - an expression of hope for the future. The stones are not mere containers. The partnership between tree and stone will be stronger for having grown from the stone." Goldsworthy is most known for his fleeting works with nature. "I try whenever possible to make one or two ephemeral works each day," Goldsworthy has said. But his permanent works are "much more thought-out and reasoned….I take seriously the responsibility of leaving behind something that will last a long time." Garden of Stones, while using stone, one of nature's more immutable materials, is balanced by the delicacy of the young tree. In no other of Goldsworthy's permanent commissions is there such a marriage of the ephemeral and the timeless. Goldsworthy was selected for this major commission from a group of more than 60 internationally known artists. The Museum and Public Art Fund collaborated on the Memorial Garden selection process, inviting artists and landscape architects to submit materials for consideration. Five artists were commissioned to make full proposals by a panel that included input from the Trustees of the Museum, Holocaust survivors, and members of the larger community. The artist competition was funded by Museum Trustee Michael Steinhardt.
Andy Goldsworthy was born in Cheshire, England in 1956. Since the 1970s, he has been making sculptures and installations with and about nature. Solo museum exhibitions of his work have been held in the Setagaya Art Museum, Japan (1994); the Barbican Centre, London (2000); Site Santa Fe, New Mexico (2000); the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego (2002); and elsewhere around the world. His other major permanent commissions in the United States include Storm King Wall (1995-97) at Storm King Art Center, River (2000) at Stanford University, and Three Cairns (2002) at the Des Moines Art Center. Andy Goldsworthy was the subject of the award-winning documentary by Thomas Riesshleimer, Rivers and Tides. In New York he is represented by Galerie Lelong. Garden of Stones will be open Sunday through Friday during the Museum's regular visiting hours. There is no museum admission charge to visit the garden. The Museum is located at 36 Battery Place across from the Ritz Carlton Hotel. Subways: N, R to Whitehall; 4, 5 to Bowling Green; 1, 9 to South Ferry. About the Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust About the Museum's Expansion About the Public Art Fund For this project, the Public Art Fund has partnered with the Museum of Jewish Heritage - A Living Memorial to the Holocaust, overseeing the artist selection process and the creation and installation of the Memorial Garden. The Public Art Fund is a non-profit arts organization supported by generous gifts from individuals, foundations, and corporations, and with public funds from The New York State Council on the Arts, a State Agency, and the New York City Department of Cultural Affairs.
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