#Long rochard series#

It appeals to our contemporary concern for ecological sustainability (however symbolic), and is, in its quiet way, rather humorous about what an art work might consist of.' Further Developments On A Line Made by Walking, Jonathan Griffin wrote for Frieze: 'The economy of the work вЂ“ not just its frugality, but its sealed system of effort and effect, time invested and contained, information withheld and revealed вЂ“ brings it close to a kind of holistic perfection.

#Long rochard series#

Long's line served as the prototype for what would become an enduring series of walking works that considered action, distance, and time as radical new mediums for art. While studying at Saint Martin's School of Art, Long developed A Line Made by Walking (1967), a performative work in which the artist carved a path in grass with his feet and photographed the resulting imprint.

Stones can be used as markers of time or distance, or exist as parts of a huge, yet anonymous, sculpture.' A Line Made by Walking A sculpture may be moved, dispersed or carried. these sculptures have explored transience, permanence, visibility and recognition. Incorporating natural materials such as clay, mud, stone, wood, or slate, Long explores the imprint of the body in the context of the environment, a process which has seen the artist travel across the world including to the U.S., U.K., Asia, Africa, Europe, and Antarctica. Richard Long has worked across performance, photography, sculpture, installation, drawing, and text. From 1966 to 1968, he studied at Saint Martin's School of Art in London under the tutelage of Anthony Caro and Phillip King. These images were included in the 2009 retrospective Richard Long: Heaven and Earth at the Tate Britain, London.From 1962 to 1965, Long studied at Bristol's West of England College of Art. Photography, cartography and poetry are fragments of LongвЂ™s encounters with the land, with a series of photographs of his Australian project the basis for a 1978 book published by John Kaldor Art Projects.

The 9-metre-round Bushwood circle was constructed from gum and tea-tree branches in the NGVвЂ™s Murdoch Court. Nine tonnes of blue metal stone were brought to the AGNSW to make the 30-metre-long Stone line, forming a monumental, meditative vista that critic Nancy Borlase praised for its вЂњintuitive awareness and absolute authorityвЂќ. For eight days outside of Broken Hill, NSW, he walked out and back in a straight line each day for a total of 100 miles some days later, at a nearby unknown location, Long made A line in Australia, a line of red stones that might remain in some form, or may have eroded over time. His first work, A straight hundred mile walk in Australia, was unplanned and uncharted, the location chosen intuitively. In 1976, after representing Britain at the 37th Venice Biennale, Long was invited by John Kaldor to make new works at the Art Gallery of New South Wales (AGNSW), Sydney, and the National Gallery of Victoria (NGV), Melbourne, as well as a work outside the galleries. The considered process of placement and arrangement transforms the raw materials into artworks. Long does not prefabricate or alter the natural fragments he uses, just as he does not cut into the land when making works. Each work is constructed with natural material from or near its location, reflecting the siteвЂ™s geological histories. From 1969, he began to undertake walks in Peru, Japan, Tanzania and Alaska, leaving arrangements in the landscape as traces of his passage. This became the basis of his interaction with the changing landscapes around him, and the focus of his artistic practice. After rolling a snowball across the Bristol Downs in 1964, Long began to make journeys and walks as a form of sculpture. Long studied at St MartinвЂ™s School of Art, London, with Gilbert & George, and was similarly inspired to challenge sculptureвЂ™s formal constraints. Throughout the English artistвЂ™s practice, he has evoked natureвЂ™s vast terrain, its energy and flux, his work often erased by time and the elements, reflecting the evanescence of human presence and action. The relationship with place is vital to Richard LongвЂ™s work, and his Kaldor project was the first of several visits and projects connected to the Australian landscape.