DES MOINES, IOWA.- The Des Moines Art Center presents "Andy Goldsworthy - Three Cairns," on view through October 13, 2002. Three Cairns, a project spanning North America by world-renown British artist Andy Goldsworthy, is launched with three major events: a public lecture by the artist, the opening of the Art Center’s Three Cairns exhibition, and a community day, July 20, to celebrate a new acquisition — a massive stone sculpture created by Goldsworthy in Greenwood Park.



In its entirety, Three Cairns is comprised of three temporary cairns, three permanent sculptures, and three exhibitions on the East and West Coasts of America and in Des Moines. Three Cairns was initiated by the Des Moines Art Center, Des Moines, Iowa, and is organized in partnership with the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, California, and the Neuberger Museum of Art, Purchase, New York. The project was conceived by Susan Lubowsky Talbott, director of the Des Moines Art Center, and Chris Gilbert, associate curator; it is curated with Hugh M. Davies, David C. Copley director at the Museum of Contemporary Art San Diego; and Dede Young, curator of modern and contemporary art at the Neuberger Museum of Art.



Goldsworthy, who is known for his sculpture made of natural materials, intends the Three Cairns project to link distant sites by means of sculptures, all made from Iowa limestone, that form a virtual line across the country. The basic idea of the project, which focuses on the cairn form (an oval stone structure that Goldsworthy has been creating since the 1980s) is to connect the two coasts with the center of the country as well as to highlight the distinct environmental traits of the Eastern, Western, and Central United States.



In March 2001, Goldsworthy created the first of the temporary cairns at the Conard Environmental Research Area, a reconstructed prairie site operated by Grinnell College. In addition, Faulconer Gallery and the Center for Prairie Studies at Grinnell College also collaborated with the Art Center on this part of the project. In the summer and autumn of 2001, the artist built the two remaining temporary cairns in tidal zones on the East and West Coasts. Goldsworthy documented these temporary sculptures as they endured the climatic conditions at each location. On the two coasts, the cairns were quickly destroyed by incoming tides, resulting in a spectacular photographic series. In Iowa, the artist’s photographs depict the cairn in different weather conditions—surrounded by prairie grasses at different heights, in snow, under moonlight, and, most recently, immersed in fire when the staff of the Conard Environmental Research Area burned a section of the prairie as part of the site’s regular maintenance.



Three permanent sculptures—also based on the cairn shape—form the second part of the project. The central piece in this trio of geographically distant works is the stone sculpture erected this spring and summer in Greenwood Park. Created entirely from Iowa limestone—which the artist selected to match the stone in the nearby Saarinen building of the Art Center—this four-part sculpture consists of a central cairn surrounded by three box-like walls. Each wall has a cavity that exactly matches a cairn form, with the cavity in the central wall matching the cairn 30 feet away in Greenwood Park. The walls to the east and west each have cavities matching permanent cairns the artist has created on the grounds of the Neuberger Museum of Art and the Museum of Contemporary Art, San Diego, respectively.



Goldsworthy’s exhibition at the Art Center recaps the major themes of the Three Cairns project: the dialogue among east, west and center and the cairn-as-a-marker-of-place. This exhibition includes work that is created in the Art Center galleries from natural materials, together with three series of panoramic photographs that show the temporary cairns in different climatic conditions. These photographs are displayed on either side of a gallery divided by an open screen made of Iowa cattails. A serpentine “drawing” created from ferns collected across the United States winds across the 106-foot south wall of the main gallery. Also, the artist displays his preparatory drawings, journal entries, and photographs of the permanent sculpture in progress. Goldsworthy will stage related exhibitions at each of the two partnering museums in the spring and summer of 2003.



At the Art Center, major funding for Andy Goldsworthy: Three Cairns was provided by the Bank of America Foundation; The Jacqueline and Myron Blank Exhibition Fund; The Bright Foundation; The Meier Bernstein Foundation; the National Endowment for the Arts; and the Wallace Reader’s Digest Funds. Brian Clark and Associates; Manatts, Inc; Star Equipment, Ltd; Taylor Construction Group; and the Weber Stone Company provided in-kind support. The temporary cairn on the Iowa prairie was commissioned by the Des Moines Art Center in collaboration with the Center for Prairie Studies and the Faulconer Gallery at Grinnell College.



The Des Moines Art Center dedicates this exhibition to the memory of Jacqueline N. Blank (1913–2002), long-standing trustee and generous supporter of the Des Moines Art Center and this exhibition.