Richard Long

Richard Long makes nature the subject of his work, but in new different way. He works outside using natural materials like grass and water which then evolved into the idea of making a sculpture by walking. Walking itself has its own cultural history, from Pilgrims to contemporary long-distance walkers.

Longs first work made by walking, in 1967, was a straight line in a grass field, which was his own path, going ‘nowhere’. Longs intention was to make a new art which was also a new way of walking: walking as art.  Each walk followed his own unique route. Each walk stood for a particular idea. Thus walking as art provided an ideal means to explore relationships between time, distance, geography and measurement. Long records his in three ways: in maps, photographs or text works.  All these forms feed the imagination, they are the distillation of experience.

Walking also enables Long to extend the boundaries of sculpture. Sculpture could now be about place as well as material and form. His landscape sculptures are on two ends of the spectrum they may be a built monument of natural material or simply leaving only footprints in the landscape. Stones from his walks can be used as markers of time or distance, or exist as parts of a huge sculptures. On a mountain walk a sculpture could be made above the clouds, perhaps in a remote region, bringing an imaginative freedom about how, or where, art can be made in the world.

Richards Longs work is not only a form of sustainable design in the sense that it does not harm the enviroment. He may tread down some grass photograph it and then the area is left to return to its natural state once again. But also Longs work defeats borders and boundaries. Who says that art belongs on paper or on a canvas on a wall in a gallery instead Long will create his installations out in the natural enviroment with the freedom of space around the art as opposed to a confined piece of paper. Long has a new contemporary outlook on art and i think its brilliant he has now boundaries his works are mainly spontaneous which is probably what makes them so thought-provoking.

As a designer do we have the role to create art in a new space, make people view art in a new way. The enviroment itself is art perhaps we should just sit back and enjoy that for a while.