Thursday, May 7, 2009

Heres my sort of Artist!

Richard Long has spent 40years making his art by walking. Taking his opportunities in wild landscapes to challenge the location of Art in our lives. As he expresses in this great interview in the Independent

"MCM: I always think of your art as one of understatement.

RL: Doing almost nothing. Also there was that moment in the 1960s when the idea of filling the world with more and more objects became questionable. And, perhaps more in hindsight, there are connections with Arte Povera. You could argue that A Line Made by Walking [1967] is the ultimate Arte Povera work, it's made of nothing and disappears to nothing. It has no substance, and yet it's a real artwork."

"RL: Or that a work could be made anywhere. On a mountain top, or it could disappear. Or, it could exist but no one else could find it. Or a local person could see it but not recognise it as art, or identify a stone I had placed on the road from another stone. I was really interested in all these different ways I could put my work in the world. And always in a simple way.

MCM: By marking your presence...

RL: ...or walking down the road. Walking across Ireland, putting a stone on the road at every mile along the way: 164 miles, 164 stones [1969]. If you put all those stones together it's a big work, but because it's spread out in space, it becomes invisible. Well, not invisible, but unnoticeable, which is different. And those stones are still out there somewhere, they haven't disappeared. So, you only know this work, which is equally a walk and a sculpture, through the information, the story, the artwork. "

2 comments:

Ruahines said...

Kia ora Jamie,
Thanks for this mate, reads as extremely cool, and I have saved his website to my favourites so will check it out when time allows. One of the great aspects of this form of connecting is discovering new and interesting people through those whom we admire and respect. So kia ora!
Cheers,
Robb

Unknown said...

Hey Robb,

For sure! One of my favourite methods of websurfing is checking out the links on other peoples blog and sites. Every now and then you discover a gem.

The New Zealand artist John Reynolds seems to have got into some sort of "landscape art". I'll blog on this sometime. Its an interesting comparison because while I love what I have seen of Long's work, Reynolds pushes all the wrong buttons for me.

Take care man

J