by MARK SLUTSKY

It’s likely that very few people have ever seen Andy Goldsworthy’s works firsthand. The Scottish artist works largely with natural materials, and much of his art is fleeting and ephemeral - leaves strung together with twigs, floating down a stream, constructions in ice that melt away as soon as the sun hits them. Most people know his stuff through the photographs he takes of every one of his pieces (though there are some, like a twisting stone wall that wends its way into a river, that are more permanent).

In Rivers and Tides: Andy Goldsworthy Working With Time, German filmmaker Thomas Riedelsheimer observes Goldsworthy at work, resulting in a beautiful, almost hypnotic documentary about the artist and his process. Since most of Goldsworthy’s art disappears within hours of his making it, the "working with time" element is key. We see him creating a dome of white tree branches in Nova Scotia; shortly after he’s finished, the tide comes in and gently lifts the structure out to sea, where it gradually disintegrates. Time is as much part of Goldsworthy’s palette as any of the concrete materials he uses - when the dome falls apart it’s as much a part of the work as when it’s just sitting there.

One of the most quietly fascinating scenes in Rivers and Tides has Goldsworthy calmly trying to build one of his signature sculptures, shaped like a large seed, on a windy beach. Over and over again he fails, the rocks falling apart, until he finally learns how to work with it and the sculpture sits there on the beach as the waves envelop it. It’s a moment of revelatory, artistic triumph.

Goldsworthy, bearded, scruff and in his mid-40s, is a bit of a mystery. While Riedelsheimer gets in close, showing his calm determination, we don’t really get an internal sense of where his art comes from. But I would argue this is actually a good thing - when movies try to explain an artist’s inspiration they almost always come across as false or reductive. Instead, the filmmaker gives us the sense that all we need to know about the artist is to watch him make his art.

Rivers and Tides opens Friday, June 20

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