Saturday 4 August 2007

Walking and Marking - A Retrospective, Richard Long

Richard Long's work is fascinating. This exhibition at the Scottish Gallery of Modern Art in Edinburgh brings together a wide range of his work from the 1960s onward. His work is concerned with human relationships with the natural world through walking and simple mark making. A series of work here consists of paper that has been dipped in river mud and then hung, allowing gravity to create patterns in the mud. The results looks like aerial photos of patterns of river tributaries and although they are all very similar, the small differences point up the small details that make for uniqueness in the natural world. Another series uses found items - such as driftwood, Berber tent pegs and scrap metal - as canvases for simple finger paintings. The finger paintings and the site specific artworks aloong the rountes of walks Long hasmade over the years, point to the human need to constantly leave our mark on everything/everywhere. It's a wonderfully inspiring and thought provoking exhibition, if a little repetitive after a while.


Richard Long: Walking and Marking, Scottish National Gallery of Modern Art, Edinburgh
until 21 October 2007. £6/£4.

1 comment:

Oceanshaman said...

Very cool. Long is making his mark-- taking action, but then stepping back and leaving the outcome to the cosmos . . .

A good lesson in how to be, not only in art but in life . . .