The Richard Long Exhibition, ‘Heaven and Earth’ explores the patterning and textures of landscape. We are asked to think about whether Long ‘creates a work in the landscape or out of it’. The patterns on maps which outline his walks are works in the landscape, but where he has created sculpture with stones and twigs this must be out of the landscape. The work in/out of the landscape is not the only work that Long creates. There are also the photographs of the landscapes he produces to share which are also works in their own right. There is a question for me to whether Long is creating the work in the landscape himself or is just contributing to a culmination of different works, both natural and human made. Long’s projects aren’t necessarily collaborative but there must be a sense that Long is just one contributor to the work as it is seen.

Sometimes the work looks out of place in the landscape and at other times it merges into the landscape. The installations in the Tate Gallery itself look at odds with their surroundings in comparison to the photographs of the works from across the world.

The themeing of the exhibition was interesting but I lost the chronological development of Long’s work. This mattered for me, because I kept thinking did Long continue to do the same things over a period of time and I was interested in the journey. The exhibition is more earth than heaven. It made me think about the use of space. The landscapes which Long works are vast and the sense of these has to be conveyed by an exhibition which encloses all the different work in an internal space.

Reviews and Previews

Richard Long in The Telegraph
Richard Long Exhibition (Independent)
Times on Richard Long
Richard Long moves heaven and earth at Tate Britain
Richard Long takes art for a walk at Tate Britain
Richard Long Exhibition (Evening Standard)

Catalogue

Wallis, Clarrie. (2009) Richard Long: Heaven and Earth. Tate Publishing

Richard Long Exhibition Tate Britain