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Land Art

An earthwork by Robert Smithson, 1970, Utah (USA).

The 1960s saw the emergence of a new genre within the arts, Land Art (Ryan 95-96). Land Art is often seen as a consequence or simultaneous development with the climate awareness of this period. Increasing attention was being drawn to the destructive qualities of our lifestyles and the realization of the potential consequences brought some artists a new perspective on material use and the position of art in relation to us and the earth. Despite the climate awareness of some artists, there was still much criticism on the "earthworks" movement in the 60s and 70s. Artists who made drastic adjustments to landscapes, especially those in America, were condemned for their barbaric acts. Some critics compared these artworks to the well-known phenomenon within the Western world where culture and technology are forced upon nature (Tufnell 46). Land Art is additionally seen as a counter movement to gallery and museum systems and traditions. In the 1960s idealism was replaced by dissatisfaction and doubts about the strucutren within society, including the art world. This was also related to the Cold World War and the war crimes in Vietnam that peaked around 1968 (Tufnell 12). Although many landscape artists wanted to break away from these systems, including the art market and such commercial functions ascribed to the arts, many remained dependent for financial reasons. Gallery owners gave artists donations and collectors or benefactors attributed land to artists to bring about their project (Whiteley, ch. 15). Breaking away from the gallery and museums resulted in new freedoms landscape artists wanted to explore. In doing so, they broke free from traditional aesthetic models and materials. Additionally, their environmentally conscious work broke with all artistic traditions, allowing a new language of art to develop at large. New materials, methods, perspectives and approaches gave way for new great spatial and conceptual landscape works. The new art language formed a dialogue between place, process, and materials (Ryan 96-97). All aspects of the artwork were merged with the environment and subject to the processes to which the environment exposed them to. However, the environment itself also underwent changes, as a result of the affect the artwork had on its surroundings. Depending on the artwork, it could provide the environment with new vegetation, cause sedimentation or erosion in places. With positive or negative consequences. In his book Land Art, Ben Tufnell makes a clear distinction between the various focal points that can be considered within Land Art, but attributes the same origin to all of the side currents. Land Art, he claims, reflects on the socio-cultural situations of its time. A time of conflicts and paradoxes.

Land Art betrays the conflicted attitudes of the time towards the earth and the environment. It encompasses the scarring of the landscape, the ecological reclemation of industrially devastated land, an impulse towards change and permanence and an attitude of respect, a desire to 'leave no trace' (Tufnell 13-14).

Land Art thus is a translation of the social changes that took place in Western societies. It is an announcement of but also the new beginning itself.

Land art in the Himalayas

Already during Long's time at the art academy St. Martins in the UK, he made his first landscape artwork, A Line Made by Walking in 1967. Long was convinced that art could be shaped and embraced in more things than traditional studio materials and methods such as plaster and painting. Accordgin to him, art could also include grass, clouds, or water. With this free view of art, Long explored the notions of space and size, and arrived at a simplistic form of art, namely walking. The footprint visible in the artwork A Line Made by Walking was the result of the artist walking up and down in a straight line several times. Long was interested in the line because of the light and temporary nature of the form formed by the natural coming together of elements in a place and moment (Fuchs 46). This first line, formed by Long, prompted him to create more work in which the form is added to a landscape in new diverse ways; with different materials, on different surfaces, lengths and combinations. In 1975 he made A line in the Himalayas from stones found in the immediate vicinity. The line of light colored stones was made on the Everest Icefall and contrasts with the dark gray background of the mountain. Each stone was selected individually and composed together to form a whole and organized line. He made this line while hiking through the mountains and chose the site for the artwork by chance. The randomness of his work makes A line in the Himalayas place- and time-bound and largely determines the relationship of the work to the landscape. The artwork is made at a randomly chosen location from the materials in the immediate vicinity, making Long dependent on what the environment offers him. In addition, the time frame of the walk influences the development of the artwork. Because the creative process has so much influence on the final work, this process becomes part of the work itself. So Long's artwork consists of two parts, the making process and the final work that is documented. A line in the Himalayas is made of the materials present in the environment and cannot be moved without destroying the artwork. The artwork and the place are so intertwined that the place becomes part of the artwork. The relationship between the materials and place makes that without the place the artwork cannot exist (Tilley and Cameron-Daum 238-239). The place attachment (site-specificity) of the work entails yet another process, decay. After the completion of the artwork, Long documents his work and continues his walk, however, the artwork continues to exist and is subjected to the natural processes of the environment. Long simply describes his work as an additional layer on the surface of the globe and emphasizes the continuity of his work. His artworks are temporary and changeable and intended to eliminate any form of permanence. As a result of his goal of creating impermanent work that is itself site-specific, Long is dependent on the documentation of his work. The photograph of A line in the Himalayas is the way to make his work visible and part of the art world. Long uses different forms of documentation such as poems and other texts, photographs, sketches and film, to which Land Art owes, among other things, its broad definition. Through Long's work, it becomes clear that Land Art can take a most simple form in which time, place and environment are interwoven in the work but also in the creative process. Long's choice of place and material gives him the space to let Land Art resonate through other media as well.

Richard Long,A line in the Himalayas, 1975, Tate, UK. Richard Long,A line made by walking , 1967, Tate, UK.

References

Ryan, Leslie. “Art + Ecology: Land Reclamation Works of Artists Robert Smithson, Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison”. Environmental Philosophy [special Issue: Environmental Aesthetics and Ecological Restoration], vol. 4, nr. 1 & 2, 2007, pp. 95–116.

Fuchs, Rudolf Herman. Richard Long. 1st ed., Thames and Hudson, 1986.Ryan, Leslie. “Art + Ecology: Land Reclamation Works of Artists Robert Smithson, Helen Mayer Harrison and Newton Harrison”. Environmental Philosophy [special Issue: Environmental Aesthetics and Ecological Restoration], vol. 4, nr. 1 & 2, 2007, pp. 95–116.

Tilley, Christopher en Kate Cameron-Daum. “Art in and from the Landscape”. Anthropology of Landscape: The extraordinary in the Ordinary, UCL Press, 2017, pp. 234–61.

Tufnell, Ben. Land Art. British First, Tate Publishing, 2007.

Whiteley, Nigel. “Earth Art”. Art and Pluralism: Lawrence Alloway’s Cultural Criticism, Liverpool University Press, 2012, pp. 368–71. Fuchs, Rudolf Herman. Richard Long. 1st ed., Thames and Hudson, 1986.

Land Art

Land art in the Himalayas

References

Further reading