ARTIST ROOMS Ed Ruscha

Richard Long CBE, Ten Days Walking and Sleeping on Natural Ground  1986

This work resulted from a ten-day meandering circular walk in the Scottish Highlands. Each section describes the work in different ways. The left hand section bears the title, which for Long ‘embodies the idea of the walk’. The central section lists chronologically the places he passed on the walk. The right section describes Long’s ‘ideas, thoughts and experiences mixed up and floated in time’.

Long used a map, which though full of names was otherwise largely featureless (he was mainly walking in wilderness). Long brings together the objective information from the map and the experiences he had on the walk.

Gallery label, February 2010

Richard Long CBE, Waterfall Line  2000

This is a site-specific wall-painting, commissioned for the opening of Tate Modern in May 2000. It comprises a long rectangular area of wall painted black, at which the artist slung white river mud, scrubbing and wiping it with his gloved hands to create a swirling, striped pattern resembling the trace left by an enlarged and simplified paintbrush. This is the texture resulting from outstretched fingers. Long worked in this way on a narrow strip along the top of the black rectangle, allowing the mud to splatter down the broader strip of black background below, creating a pattern reminiscent of Chinese calligraphy brush strokes depicting the leaves of bamboo or an uneven fall of torrential rain. Long’s painting represents literally a waterfall, since it consists of marks made by water, diluted by silt creating mud, falling down the wall. The strong vertical lines created by sliding blobs of mud convey a sense of powerful physical energy as the artist worked quickly and vigorously with his material. A line of solid white expanding into millions of tiny dots at the very base of the work, where the wall joins the floor, resembles the intense spray at the base of a waterfall, where liquid hits a surface of strong resistance and is shot back upwards. This emphasises the sense of energy in the creation of the work. Long has commented:

Richard Long CBE, Sahara Circle  1988

Sahara Circle was made by Long during a walk through the Hoggar region of the Sahara in southern Algeria. He arranged a ring of rocks around a circular area that he had cleared within a patch of broken stones. ‘I think circles have belonged in some way or other to all people at all times’,Long has said. ‘They are universal and timeless, like the image of a human hand. For me, that is part of their emotional power, although there is nothing symbolic or mystical in my work.’

Gallery label, April 2009

Richard Long CBE, South Bank Circle  1991

Richard Long’s work is based on his personal experience of landscape and natural forms. The contrast between the geometry of the circle and the irregular contours of the natural objects in this piece suggests the presence of man in the landscape. The slate, from the Delabole quarry in Cornwall, was roughly cut to retain as much of its natural character as possible. The circular arrangement is an imposed order, but the flatness of each piece is characteristic of slate, representing a natural order.

The title refers to the Hayward Gallery on London’s South Bank, where it was first exhibited.

Gallery label, March 2004

Richard Long CBE, Norfolk Flint Circle  1990

Norfolk Flint Circle was created specifically for Tate’s Duveen Galleries, as part of a special exhibition in honour of Long having won the Turner Prize in 1989. It is a circle, eight metres in diameter, composed of a single layer of flints lying close together on the floor. The flints may be assembled in a wide variety of configurations within the defining form of the circle, as Long has commented: ‘because all the stones are completely different eccentric shapes they can actually be put together in endlessly different combinations, with the result always looking more or less the same.’ (Quoted in Richard Long: Walking in Circles, p.77.) Bringing together the unevenly shaped flints in the geometric structure of the circle, the sculpture illustrates a theme common in Long’s work, the relationship between man and nature. As he has explained, ‘you could say that my work is ... a balance between the patterns of nature and the formalism of human, abstract ideas like lines and circles. It is where my human characteristics meet the natural forces and patterns of the world, and that is really the kind of subject of my work.’ (Quoted in Richard Long: Walking in Circles, p.250)

Richard Long CBE, Silence Circle Big Bend Texas  1990

Silence Circle Big Bend Texas is a large, framed, black and white photograph depicting a circle cleared in a stony area, punctuated by thorn bushes, in front of low, dry mountains. Under the photograph the first two words of the title, hand-written in red capital letters, are accompanied by a short descriptive text, in black capital letters, over three lines. It reads: ‘a resting place on a ten day walk/ along the Rio Grande and in the Chisos Mountains/ Big Bend Texas 1990’. Both in form and content, this work closely resembles an earlier work by Long, Circle in Africa 1978 (Tate T06890), a photograph of a circle of cactus branches assembled on a mountain in Malawi. Long has commented: ‘I think circles have belonged in some way or other to all people at all times. They are universal and timeless, like the image of a human hand. For me, that is part of their emotional power, although there is nothing symbolic or mystical in my work.’ (Quoted in Friis-Hansen, p30.) Making a circle, either by assembling or by clearing away natural elements, is one way for the artist to leaving his mark, albeit transitory, on the landscape he has passed through.

Richard Long CBE, A Line Made by Walking  1967

This photograph shows a straight line of trampled grass receding towards tall bushes or trees at the far side of what appears to be a field. Below the photograph, on the off-white paper mount, are the words ‘A LINE MADE BY WALKING’ (handwritten in red pencil) and, below this, ‘ENGLAND 1967’ (handwritten in graphite pencil).

Richard Long CBE, In the Cloud  1991

In the Cloud is a large framed text work, printed on off-white paper. The title words ‘IN THE CLOUD’ are printed in red capital letters in Gill Sans typeface. Below is a text printed in black capitals in the same font:

Richard Long CBE, A Line in the Himalayas  1975, printed 2004

Since the 1960s Long has based his art on the action of walking in the natural landscape. He later extended this practice to creating sculptures using materials found in these landscapes, whether at the site itself or in the gallery. A Line in the Himalayas is one of several works that resulted from a walk in the Nepalese Himalayas that Long made in 1975. The photograph records a line of white stones arranged by the artist, which stretch towards the mountain peaks in the distance.

Gallery label, April 2009

Richard Long CBE, Red Slate Circle  1988

Since the late 1960s Long has been making works that originate in carefully planned walks in the countryside. His peregrinations act as drawings that inscribe physical or metaphorical marks into the landscape. When Long brings natural materials into the gallery environment he places them in simple,geometric arrangements, as here with red slate from the border of Vermont and New York State. This configuration emphasises the tension between conceptual structure and organic matter. Long stated: ‘A circle outdoors focuses our attention on the environment it is in, while indoors the circle and materials demand the attention.’

Gallery label, September 2016

Richard Long CBE, Circle in Africa  1978

This photograph records a work Long made during a walk in Malawi, in south east Africa. During the walk he came across a pile of burnt wood on a hillside which he arranged into a circle. Geometric forms, in particular circles and straight lines, occur frequently in Long's art.

Gallery label, September 2004

Richard Long CBE, A Line in Bolivia - Kicked Stones (2 Versions)  1981

A key element in Long’s art is the way he imposes order on objects he has found or collected at random. He often arranges naturally-occurring forms into circles or straight lines. There is often a tension between the orderliness of such arrangements and more random elements. This duality is introduced here by the fact that the stones have been arranged into a rectangular pattern by the relatively haphazard process of kicking.

Gallery label, March 2004

Richard Long CBE, Cerne Abbas Walk  1975

Long uses walking as an artistic medium. This work is the result of a six-day walk around an ancient figure cut into a chalky hillside in Dorset. The map shows his route, retracing and re-crossing many roads to stay within a predetermined circle. The photo on the map shows the ancient chalk ‘giant’ of Cerne Abbas. Long took part in several exhibitions organised around the world by the CAyC, beginning with the key exhibition Arte de Sistemas (‘Systems Art’) held in Buenos Aires in 1971.

Gallery label, January 2019