Goldworthy's 'Three Cairns' marks many journeys
By Lance Vargas

Like any art exhibit worth its mettle, Andy Goldsworthy's "Three Cairns" is relevant on many levels.

It's of interest to La Jollans because it explains the meaning of the egg-shaped stack of stones Goldsworthy built on the Museum of Contemporary Art's south side. Deeper than that, the exhibit details the nature of the North American continent and the inevitable passage of time and its effect on things animate and inanimate.

The La Jolla stack of stones and its two siblings built in Des Moines, Iowa, and Purchase, New York, are what Goldsworthy calls "cairns."

"A cairn is traditionally a pile of stones put along pathways to mark journeys," he said. "The journeys the artist is marking are the cross-continent changes of landscape and climate as well as the lifetime journeys of humans and the Earth.

The cairn in La Jolla sits aside a pathway, but it marks a greater journey than someone making a shortcut from the Children's Pool to Pearl Street. It marks a life journey, a passage of time for both the stones and those observing them. Though many may not realize it as they drive or walk by, the stones are part of a bigger picture. There is a cross-continent element to the cairn. At museums in Des Moines and Purchase, identical stacks mark the journey made by the artist himself and countless others across North America.

The Des Moines cairn is the centerpiece of the trio with its accompanying walls featuring concave images of the east and west coast sculptures, pointing viewers in the directions of the other museums. Thus, the sculpture outside the museum is an extension of a larger exhibit.

While the three cairns at the museums were intended to be permanent, Goldsworthy also built three temporary cairns along a similar intercontinental path. Two on the tides of New Rochelle, New York, and Pigeon Point, Calif., and another on a reconstructed prairie in Grinnel, Iowa.

With effective use of large panoramic photos, the exhibit "Three Cairns" captures the stages of deterioration each temporary cairn was exposed to throughout its "life." The coastal cairns, more volatile due to their aquatic setting, are subjected to rising and lowering tides and pounding waves The photos follow the cairns as they sit dry on the beach, are swallowed by the tide, emerge again and eventually collapse under the conditions.

The prairie cairn goes through a different treatment over a year's time. Goldsworthy commented that it was on the Iowa prairie where he experienced the two most extreme temperatures he ever endured, harsh, wind-chilled cold during the winter and intense, fiery heat as the prairie and cairn were subjected to a controlled burn later that year.

The accompanying photos of the prairie cairn show fire raging around the cairn in one image and snow gathered around it in another, highlighting the climate journey of the stones.

Goldsworthy had a passage of his own during the life span of the prairie cairn. His father, a scientist who helped him on many of his projects, passed away. The cairn was dedicated to him in remembrance. Linking the two is the kismet of his father's cremation at the time the prairie cairn was in the controlled burn. It is this sort of application that drives home the overall message of the exhibit.

Goldsworthy's master dialogue continues with other facets of the "Three Cairns." In one display, he splits a room in two with a wall of Iowa cattail stalks and Scottish thorns. In others, forms a river of ferns on
the ceiling and covers an entire wall with clay.

In one of the exhibits more interesting sights, Goldsworthy shows 32 stones he fired in a 1,200 degree kiln. When the stones fissured and melted, each one took a different form as they returned to their original molten form, completing the journey they began eons ago. When the stones cooled, they hardened once again and the results decorate the floor of the museum.

A particularly aesthetic aspect of the exhibit is the work, "Oak Cairn." Constructed from windfallen Scottish oak branches, the cairn is a towering structure taller than three men and formed with interlocked branches of an oak tree. It is mortarless and touches the top of the museum. The cairn was constructed in one day and is strong enough to climb on.

"Three Cairns" will be at the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, in La Jolla until Aug. 26. Call (858) 454-6985 or visit www.mcasd.org.