Exhibition
Richard Long: Heaven and Earth - Tate Britain
This major exhibition is Richard Long's first survey in London for eighteen years and is a unique opportunity to understand afresh the artist's radical rethinking of the relationship between art and landscape. Richard Long has made the landscapes of the world the potential territory of his work. He first came to prominence in the late 1960s and is part of a generation of international artists who extended the possibilities of sculpture beyond traditional methods and materials. Long's work come from his love of nature and through the experience of making solitary walks. These take him through rural and remote areas in Britain, or as far a field as the plains of Canada, Mongolia and Bolivia. Long never makes significant alterations to the landscapes he passes through. Instead he marks the ground or adjusts the natural features of a place by up-ending stones for example, or making simple traces. He usually works in the landscape but sometimes uses natural materials in the gallery. His work explores relationships between time, distance, geography, measurement and movement. Featuring over 80 works, Heaven and Earth includes sculptures, large-scale mud wall works, and new photographic and text works documenting walks around the world, plus a big selection of the artists' books, postcards and other printed matter.
