NEWSLETTER
SEPTEMBER 2008
   

INDOC. Documentation Centre about Art and Nature
     
 

Wooden boulder : 1978-2003, de David Nash

  
 

An artist’s book devoted exclusively to Wooden Boulder by David Nash has just been published. This Welsh artist, also represented in the Art and Nature collection-route, is responsible for creating one of the most outstanding works of European land art.

Wooden Boulder tells the story of a spherical sculpture created from the trunk of a fallen oak tree. In 1978 David Nash pushed the piece into a stream, and in 2003 it was finally washed out to sea and lost.  This publication, a limited-edition artist's book, offers a complete documentary record of the work.

  
 

David Nash (Wales, 1945) has gained international prominence for his work in the field of land art. His creations are usually linked to the world of trees and forests and are therefore generally in wood. Nash believes it is important to create sculptures that are both tough and self-sufficient. Weather phenomena and the various changes they undergo should make their mark on the works in the course of a temporal journey.

This is precisely what happens in the case of Wooden Boulder, the work this publication is concerned with. Wooden Boulder: 1978-2003 presents the journey, the route, taken by a polyhedral sculpture (akin to a sphere), which makes its way from a small stream in Wales to the open sea.

It was back in 1978 that David Nash created the sculpture from the trunk of a fallen oak tree he found in a forest in Wales and launched it into a nearby stream. This was the starting point for an artistic project with a history of its own (a journey not without difficulties), which continued until June 2003 when the piece was lost in the ocean. As Nash said, though, ‘it’s not lost; it’s where it wants to be.’

The allegorical dimension of the work is clear. This is why David Nash has created a limited-edition artist’s book that includes all the documentation generated about the work. The box contains a book that tells the story of the work, a three-fold pamphlet with photographs, a two-fold pamphlet with drawings by the artist showing the entire route, nine plates of drawings by Nash, and a 12-minute DVD that contextualises the work in relation to nature and the landscape.

 

Details:

  • Wooden Boulder: 1978-2003. Designed by David Nash and John Schmid. Wabern: Benteli, 2008. One box (30 X 21 cm), containing 1 book (10 pp.), 2 two-fold pamphlets, 1 three-fold pamphlet, nine plates, and 1 DVD (12 min.).

 

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INDOC. Documentation centre about Art and Nature.
 
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