The Alpine foothills in this rugged part of northern Provence already reach about 900 metres before a muddy track rises abruptly to an abandoned farmhouse where a group of stoneworkers picnic in the late autumn sun.
Among the six men looking across an empty valley to towering snow-covered peaks, the Scottish artist Andy Goldsworthy sits beside master craftsman Gordon Wilton (56) from Buxton, discussing one of the most physically challenging art projects ever undertaken.
While some great artworks remain hidden from the public in private collections or vaults, this art will be accessible only to the fit and the determined.
Requiring more brute force than artistic flair, the real test of stamina will be for those who will visit an immense open-air art gallery involving a 12-day walk over more than 160km of rough and often dangerous mule trails.
Into this project Goldsworthy (47) will plough the £70 000 in compensation he won last week in an out-of-court settlement from Habitat’s advertising company. In a breakthrough for artists trying to protect ideas, he also received an apology from the agency that had hijacked his ‘concept’ — giant ‘snowballs’ stuffed with wood which made his name when they appeared mysteriously on London’s streets in 1990.
Although he can earn £500 000 for one commission and is Britain’s top-selling subject of art books after David Hockney, he is receiving only a token fee in Provence. ‘He loves it here and wants to show his attachment and gratitude in the most artistic way possible by creating something original that blends with the landscape, the history and the social life of a poor but beautiful region,’ said Nadine Gomez, curator of the museum at Digne-les-Bains, a key sponsor of Goldsworthy’s project. ‘His Upper Provence visit is now a permanent date in his calendar even if it brings him nothing like the money he can earn elsewhere.’
Goldsworthy, who lives in a farmhouse at Penpont, Dumfriesshire, has a commission to design a chain of 13 réfuges d’art, mostly old buildings where walkers can shelter or pass the night among intriguing modern sculptures inspired by traditional British dry-stonewall techniques. The work will take several years but this isolated corner of France, two hours from the nearest TGV rail line, around the spa town of Digne now boasts the biggest single collection of Goldsworthy’s work.
The sculptures are taking shape at the same time as a British project based on Cumbrian sheepfolds, and as other commissions take him and his team of British stonemasons around the world. He was paid £590 000 to design a memorial garden for the Museum of Jewish Heritage in New York and photographs of his sculptures sell for up to £25 000.
After the picnic at the roofless Belon farmhouse, Goldsworthy, his face masked in stone dust under a ‘Scotland’ embroidered cap, explained: ‘I was invited to Digne for an exhibition in 1995 when the Alpes de Haute Provence département was wondering how to revive a deserted countryside. The idea of combining long distance walking with artworks took root. I adore working in agricultural settings so I came up with the idea of new uses for ruined buildings.’
With the help of rangers from the 200 000-hectare geological reserve, a fossil-hunters’ paradise of multi-coloured rock formations, Goldsworthy mapped out the u-shaped trail which depended on local willingness to cede disused chapels and farm buildings. Villagers at first fought the project, claiming hordes of tourists would destroy their old lifestyle.
‘We have to use a helicopter and people got the idea that the whole thing was a rich man’s hobby to change the peaceful environment,’ he recalled. ‘After some rowdy meetings, it was accepted we were here to preserve a way of life rather than destroy it. Most people now accept local economies could be boosted by long-distance ramblers who are obliged to use local resources.’
The Belon farmhouse, the first shelter to be created among the 13 stopovers and monuments in an area hit often by severe weather, was an example of the logistical challenge. It took 40 helicopter trips to bring up materials to create the sculptures.
‘The farm was a training ground for Resistance workers in the war,’ Goldsworthy said. ‘The village council imagined some sort of traditional memorial. I designed 11 stone arches which appear to be set haphazardly, but evoke the idea of a secretive, underground existence. Each stone is cut and put together on the earth floor of the cellar.
‘The visitor will have to discover their significance. There won’t be any obvious clue to the Resistance although I might leave something in the dormitory cupboard so that ramblers can discover the history of the site by accident. Eventually, I hope the refuges and artworks will become known worldwide and attract tourists who appreciate the challenge of nature.’
While it will be years before the art and walking trail are completed, elements of the 13 stopovers are already in place. The trail starts in Nadine Gomez’s intimate Musée Gassendi in Digne, which has been reopened with a mural called River of Earth in which local clay makes what looks like a dried-up ochre mudflat.
By the time that work, now one of his most valuable, had been inaugurated, Goldsworthy had built three dry-stone cairns — pine cone-shaped monuments guarding entrances to three river valleys. The turbulent rivers run through the reserve, between Aix-en-Provence to the west and Nice to the south, where the best-known residents are two holy hermits.
The cairns were followed by a chapel shelter, where Goldsworthy imagined walkers ‘entering through holes in the walls and leaving an ever-growing collection of memories behind’. – Guardian Unlimited Â