Richard Long, A Pioneer of Land and Conceptual Art, Exhibits at Haunch of Venison
May 28, 2011 by All Art News
Filed under Art Events & Exhibitions
LONDON.- Haunch of Venison presents its fourth exhibition with Richard Long. Long is widely recognised as one of the most important artists to have emerged since the 1960s and is a pioneer of Land and Conceptual art. Human Nature is Richard Long’s first show in London since his acclaimed retrospective at Tate Britain in 2009. It features new works made in Spain, Switzerland, China and South Africa, as well as in Long’s ‘home’ landscape of Dartmoor.
- Richard Long, Human Nature, 2011. White China clay, Chinese blue pigment and red Vallauris clay, 1730 x 480 cm., 681 1/8 x 189 in. © Richard Long. Courtesy of Haunch of Venison.
Long’s work is rooted in his deep affinity with nature, developed during solitary walks. Walking in the landscape is the basis of Long’s practice but over the past 40 years he has extended his concerns to encompass photographic and text-based work, sculptures made in stone and wood, small-scale works using handprints and fingerprints on paper and driftwood, and monumental wall drawings made using mud and clay. Richard Long’s work is characterized by simplicity, precision and economy, yet explores conceptually complex themes and ideas. His works articulate ideas about time and space, relativity, natural forces and human experience.
The exhibition will feature two new large stone works including North South (2011) a seven meter sculpture consisting of a circle of white Portland stone bisected on the magnetic axis by a jagged line of bleach slate from Delabole in Cornwall. A dramatic mud work Human Nature (2011) will be made directly on to the walls for the show and Long will show a selection of new works based on one of the artist’s signatory motifs, his own handprint. The exhibition will include a group of recent photographic and text works relating to walks made in China, Spain, Greece, UK and France.
Human Nature will reflect the distinctive themes and interests in Richard Long’s and provide an opportunity to understand his thinking of the relationship between art and landscape.
Richard Long was born in Bristol in 1945 where he continues to live and work. Long has exhibited in many major international museums and is held in important collections worldwide including Tate, London, the Museum of Modern Art, New York, the National Gallery of Canada, Ottawa, and Musee d’Art Moderne de la Ville de Paris, Paris, among many others.
He represented Britain in the British Pavilion at the Venice Biennale in 1976 and was awarded the Turner Prize in 1989. In 1990 he became a Chevalier dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres.
