I am crushing on Richard Long, not so much the artist himself, but the beautiful, peaceful and contemplative black and white photographic documentations of his work. When I look at them my mind plays a game of word association, or perhaps thematic association…nostalgic, ritualistic, isolated, natural…disrupted… unified.
There is much contemporary art which examines, or purports to examine and critique, human impact on the environment, consumerism and waste. It is common for this kind of work to ironically, or poignantly engage consumer goods in order to make the point, usually in vast quantities. Long, however, examines human impact on the environment in a very different way.
Long’s work is, in many ways, a product of its time in the sense that much of the iconic art practice from 1960’s represented a desire for a return to a more primal and authentic self, or to examine the world and art from a new conceptual framework. This desire generated a space where sculpture, photography, text, performance and gesture all blend and conflate. This is the space of Long’s work.
For me it is his ability to capture the human trace on the landscape in an enchanting and respectful way which reminds me of the human capacity for a less fraught relationship with the world in which we live. In the case of his landscape interventions it is his ability to create art without waste which captivates me, his conception of art made simply by intervening in the landscape, walking, moving stones, shifting ash.
Of course I am aware that painting such a utopian picture of his work may appear a little naive. It is undeniable that much of his work is conceived of with the gallery space in mind, performance is turned into consumable, marketable, art-object. Likewise, such works are always open to charges of misappropriated spiritualism or primitivism. Nonetheless I think his photographic documents are beautiful, and refreshing, and provide an alternative vision, a reminder that we were not always so detached from the natural world.
Background image by English artist Richard Long
Images via: http://www.richardlong.org/Sculptures/sculptures11.html
Jane Diserio
all art is quite useful 