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Artist or Maker: Richard Long (b. 1945)
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Provenance: Konrad Fischer Gallery, Dusseldorf.
Acquired from the above by the present owner.
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Notes: PROPERTY FROM A PRIVATE COLLECTION
This work is accompanied by a certificate of authenticity signed by the artist and dated Dusseldorf 1992.
Richard Long, born in Bristol, England in 1945 has been creating Earthworks and experimenting with the ideas of man and the impermanence of nature, since the 1960s. Making a major breakthrough in British sculpture in the 60s, Long embarked on lengthy walks in the most distant and deserted places in the world, making sculptures relating to those places along the way, and back at home with collected materials. Throughout his travels to the countryside of England, Ireland and Scotland, the mountains of Nepal and Japan; and the plains of Africa, Mexico and Bolivia, Long fully documents in short texts, maps, photographs and film, everything that he notices and feels. He singles out a particular piece of terrain and visually creates a composition involving that view. He then makes photographs of imprints and impressions of the area, collects materials relevant to the scene and eventually creates impressive installations by placing stones he has found in particular places, in a circle or aligned in some other geometric form. Bath Stone Circles is made by arranging a set of stones in a circle that Long gathered on a trek through Bath, England. The simple, circular form reminds the viewer of Stonehenge and other ancient stone circles of Britain, and represents similar acts of creation long ago.
Long's art is dependent upon visualizing simple geometric forms from the fragments of the natural world he encounters on his journeys, and assembling the rugged fragments of nature into geometric forms on the gallery floor. The spirals, circles, and lines that Long creates on the gallery floors would trace actual distances traveled by the artist if they weren't confined by the encroaching walls of the gallery. As such, the sculptures are not merely representations or even reflections of nature, but actually serve as "documents of Long's engagement with the land and poetic evocations of the beauty and grandeur of the earth" (N. Spector). Long's highly developed sense of space ensures that when he re-creates or simply creates an installation based on his travels, that a completely satisfying and "accurate" placement and alignment of the materials has been achieved.
Executed in 1992, Bath Stone Circles, is an excellent example of Long's large scale installation works. The scale, orientation and alignment of the piece, allows the viewer to feel some of the energy and natural power contained within the rocks, and on a larger scale, in nature.
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