Richard Long

Listings(s)

'Karoo Highveld'

Richard Long: Karoo Highveld is the first showing of the work by British conceptual and land artist Richard Long in South Africa and on the African continent.

Long has been associated with the genres of Land Art and minimalism, however he sees his work as rooted in the act of walking, and in the reduction and relocation of forms rather than the production of new objects. Long has “made walks” all around the world, in each instance leaving a trace of his presence or arranging found natural elements directly in the landscape. Though these acts constitute the main part of his practice, he also shows artifacts and representations of his explorations and interventions in the contexts of galleries and museums.

Richard Long: Karoo Highveld comprises works, and traces of works, made during the artist’s two visits to South Africa. Though for the most part these comprise photographic pieces, text and sculptural installations, this exhibition will show, for the first time internationally, a series of fingerprint drawings made by Long during his residency at the Nirox Foundation, in the Cradle of Humankind, which took place in 2009.

09 November 2011 - 31 January 2012

'Richard Long: Works on Paper and Willem Boshoff: Text Works'

SMAC Art Gallery presents 'Richard Long: Works on Paper' (organised in collaboration with Haunch of Venison, London) and 'Willem Boshoff: Text Works'.

These concurrent exhibitions present work by two artists of international acclaim. Britain’s Richard Long, one of the world’s most renowned and established land artists, exhibits alongside Willem Boshoff, one of South Africa’s foremost conceptual artists. Richard Long and Willem Boshoff work in distinctly different visual languages. However, their central context and inspiration is synonymous: nature and the nature of things. The exhibitions reveal how the artists uniquely engage with the natural and social world. 

Affiliated with Land Art, a movement inextricably linking art and the environment, Long is interested in the earth’s surface and the experience of the natural environment. In 1967, Long started his walk-works, initially repeating the organic, impermanent act of walking in a single line until a trail was made. This notion became his point of departure for walks that have taken him to Mongolia, Bolivia, Canada, India, Nepal, Finland, Iceland, and in 2004 and 2011, South Africa.

The marks that Long leaves are dialogues with nature, delicate deliberations and meditations that resonate with a serene simplicity. Finger prints, muddy hand prints, stone sculptures, a line of sticks and old animal bones, Long’s works are not documentations but extensions, even translations of his outdoor experiences.

Boshoff combines his fascination with words and language with an astute awareness of the natural world and socio-political discourses. Working in a number of modes and media, from monumental stone and wood works, to ephemeral works from sand, to ‘concrete poetry’ (his own dictionaries and taxonomies), it is the world’s texts and textures that inspire Boshoff. Boshoff’s almost obsessive ethic and painstaking approach, in conjunction with a convergence of craft and concept has garnered his art extensive local and international recognition. Working with southern Africa’s textures, Boshoff handles sand, stone and especially wood with impressive skill and intimate intricacy.

14 June 2012 - 02 September 2012