Richard Long: Time and Space

Fifteen years after Richard Long’s last exhibition of any scale in his native Bristol, he is the Arnolfini’s showcase artist during the city’s 2015 European Green Capital celebrations. Director Kate Brindley speaks to Studio International about the exhibition

“I am interested in the universals: stones, water, mud, hands, days, circles, symmetry, gravity, footpaths, and roads.”¹

Richard Long was born and bred in Bristol and still lives in his native city, so it is not surprising that elements of the local landscape are integral to many of his works. For his exhibition at Arnolfini, which forms part of the city’s celebrations as 2015 European Green Capital, Long has selected some of his favourite photographs and text pieces, many of them with local flavour, from the last 50 years of his career. A number of key works have been recreated inside the gallery and one wall has been given over to a new painting, Muddy Water Falls (2015), using mud from the River Avon: the top half, a dynamic hand- and finger-painted mural; the bottom half, a flurry of drips, splashes and smears, created by gravity, reflecting the constant redistribution of this mud in the tidal river of its origin. “I do the top half of the work and then nature does the rest,” said Long during the press view.

Long has also created a new site-specific work on The Downs, a place of which he has fond memories, describing them as “his first wilderness”. A 170-metre-long line of resplendent white stones, Boyhood Line (2015) marks a desire line, formed by walkers over time. At 70 years of age, Long still produces all his work himself, without assistance, and the physical act of making a piece or completing a walk is very much a part of the work itself – some of which, ephemeral in nature, go on to exist solely through photography and text records.

Long is among the most important artists of his generation. He won the Turner Prize in 1989, on his fourth nomination, and represented Great Britain at the 37th Venice Biennale in 1976. He was appointed CBE in 2013. He has made artworks in all five continents – continually seeking out parts of the world that are still wilderness – and has had more than 250 solo exhibitions to date.

Richard Long: TIME AND SPACE
Arnolfini, Bristol
31 July – 15 November 2015

Richard Long: Boyhood Line
The Downs, Bristol, close to Ladies Mile
20 June – 15 November 2015

Interview by ANNA McNAY
Filmed by MARTIN KENNEDY

Reference
1. Richard Long, November 2014, exhibition guide.