Nature-loving British artist Andy Goldsworthy installed 25 arches made of Missouri limestone–each measuring about 10 feet high–outside the impressive newly expanded Saint Louis Art Museum. The arches are no competition for the City’s Gateway Arch but they are located on prime real estate. Andy’s arches are sandwiched between the Museum’s (old) Main Building and the (new) East buildings (211,431 square feet with 21 new galleries!). Goldsworthy said the idea behind the commissioned piece, Stone Sea, was “to fit as many arches as possible into the space so that individual arches are lost in one single work.”
Goldsworthy is no stranger to American stone. His Rising Stone (a 30,000 lbs. boulder disinterred from a local pond) and Path (a gravel walkway etched in a shaded glade) are both on view at the Albright-Knox Art Gallery in Buffalo, New York. The Albright-Knox is celebrating and promoting the site-specific work by hosting a summer-long photo-sharing campaign. Fans are sharing photos of things they see or make inspired by Goldsworthy’s work, e.g. wreaths of verdant leaves, mazes made of stone and sea glass. Albright-Knox posts a new photo every Friday on Instagram, Facebook and Twitter (#akgoldsworthy).
St. Louis Art Museum: New East Building, designed by Sir David Chipperfield (Scott Cantrell)