Tower Power

Although he has done installations all over the world I hadn’t heard of Andy Goldsworthy before reading about the installation of his “Spire” in the “wilds” of San Francisco’s Presidio in 2008. I was actually there that October and had read about it but never made it to the site. That was remedied last week with first a drive-by viewing and, later in the week, a get-out-of-the-car and a walk to and around it. It’s pretty cool. Its location helps, being only a football field length up the hill from Inspiration Point Overlook which has, as the name implies, one spectacular view of San Francisco Bay.

As well as projects around the world like the Spire, Goldsworthy’s fame also rests on his “natural” sculptures, constructed of the ephemeral (snow) and, sometimes, just patterns of twigs and leaves placed on the ground or on the surface of water and then photographed for posterity. The “art” itself disappears sometimes within minutes of its construction. I’ve done it myself. That is, piled some rocks and flotsam together on a beach, or a row of seagull feathers stuck in the sand, leaving them for the elements to destroy. Maybe we’ve all done it.

The forestation of the Presidio is really not that old, that is, it was only 100 years ago that major trees started being planted, creating true forests of mostly native flora, chief among them being the tall and mighty cypress extant today. Unfortunately the planting was done all at once so there was a uniformity that, when the life span of these trees starting coming to an end, their decay was also uniform. Luckily, a few years ago, federal horticulturalists recognized the problem and started clear-cutting certain areas and planting new trees. This cutting has been spaced out over two year periods so that a pattern of new trees will come to maturity at different times so that never again will everything fall down all at once. At least that’s the plan as I understand it.

That horticultural lesson over, on to the “Spire!” In 2002 Mr. Goldsworthy noticed all of this freshly cut lumber stacked about and hooked into the area as prime beef for his type of installation. He has taken the trunks of huge felled trees and lashed them together to form the sculpture you see in the photo. It’s about 100 feet tall and quite a sight. The most intriguing thing is that those little living trees planted around it will eventually grow tall enough to totally obscure the Spire, returning it to the forest from which it was carved. This sounds really good, huh? Thinking on it, however, one realizes that it’s made of wood, dead wood, and wood decays pretty fast. In fact I noticed that some of the bark on the tree trunks that make up the sculpture is already peeling away and, of course, mankind has itchy fingers (including me) who insist on touching, tapping and testing the surface. Also there were some manmade nicks made by goodness knows what sharp instruments carried in the pockets of passersby. At least, so far, it remains free of spray paint.

So the main question batted around by most observers: is it art? Well, yeah, I think so; I sure liked looking at it both from various distances and giving it an up-close hug. Yeah, it’s art. Isn’t it?