Yesterday I  went to hear Richard Long (walker, sculptor & photographer)
give a lecture and (extensive) slide show of his work, as well as to see the
installation of his recent site specific Sierra mountain walk, including
photographs, text and mudwall hand paintings at San Francisco's MOMA. Such
lovely work, but a troubling human presence. Long is more of what I would
call a "geomancer" than one interested in human relations within and about
the variously global habitats of his long walk and camping visitations.
(Most often there are no people visible at all).  The actual work -
photographs and texts, however, possess an extraordinary sense of precision,
spatial relations and time. Indeed the work, as he admits, a form of earth
science, one with roots in ancient origins and practice - whether for
religious or other cosmological purposes of study.
During the period of questions at the end of the talk, I threw him what was
probably a "ringer":  ³What kind of reading informs your work?²
He looked puzzled, so I asked, in the long tradition of English walkers and
writers, ³Like do your read Wordsworth?² I had no doubt that that would push
a button!
He reacted with the contempt that many mininamlist sculptors no doubt
reserve for romantics.
"No, I don't read Wordsworth."  And then made mention that he was reading a
popular detective writer.
In the context of his recent 20 day walk in the Sierra along the Pacific
Crest Trail, there was no indication he had read  John Muir, Rexroth, Snyder
or Whalen¹s work in those same mountains - which is, I suspect, must remain,
at least a personal loss, though I do not how the  reading of those writers
might have shaped this recent work at all.  (Well, if he actually read a
history of the Donner Party - in reference to a slide of a circle of stones
he built there - he would not have said the Party was merely "stranded
there." It was not like those in the Party who either died or barely
survived had just missed a bus!)

When I did not budge from my question, or looked at him as if he were not
being fully truthful, he allowed that had recently read a book on gravity
and Newton.

Which was right on his mark, his work. Long, I would saym is  kind of
scientist of ³the sublime,² though I am sure he does not frequently use that
³word² in his vocabulary. But much of the work is ­ framed by classical
formal elements (circle, line, time units) -  in its precision and severity
-  incredibly beautiful, indeed. Sublime. (If I can be critically
comparative, Long¹s work definitely sub-rates the crowd pleasing, Hallmark
card aspects- and no where near the intelligence - of much of the work of
Andy Goldsworthy). 

But it intrigues me how many artists ­ in this case those in a minimalist
tradition (Carl Andre, Judd, DeMaria, etc.) tend to avoid the literature
about the spaces that their work inhabits. Not always. Smithson, for
example, seems very conversant with the literature and history of, say, what
occurred about the site of Spiral Jetty (intentionally siting it near the
golden spike that connected the first transcontinental railroad.)

Unfortunately I did not get to ask Richard Long  if he even reads Thomas A.
Clark - the Scottish poet who also examines remote landscapes in an also
rigorous fashion - though, different from Long,  Clark is much more
interested in the human implication of what he discovers on his walks. Long,
by the way, is quite insistent that his text pieces not be confused with
poems. The words he considers as "objects", not different than individual
stones or other natural items, and shape in which the are printed on the
paper correspond to shape of the walk or some aspect of the terrain. The
elegant portrayal of evidence - the printed works.

In fariness, I guess we can also count multiples the number of writers who
have no literacy around the visual! It's probably the sad irony of so many
art programs in the way they exclude literature study  from their
requirements, and, reciprocally, the way creative writing programs remain
blind to visual literature, let alone the history of music, avant garde
innovation, etc. Whatever writers, artists or composers discover beyond the
frames of their discipline, I suspect is left  to do it on their own.  I
suspect, or imagine the multi-disciplinary character of computer technology
is rapidly altering the situation (tho I personally do not know if the
'pedagogy' is keeping up with these changes at all. )

Oh well, similar to scientists and surgeons, there is nothing to expect in
Long's work to suspect him to be an  expert in human or social relations ­
(spatial relations, yes) He likes being out there long, and often alone.
Yet, one must applaud the counter-imperial, non-monumental, ephemeral
character of the work - Long clearly means no natural harm - and only brings
home primarily  the visual record and analysis of what he has temporarily
built, discovered and witnessed with camera and journal.
No small achievement. Paradoxically - for the space of an exhibit, or in the
presence of many of his books - the evidence is touchingly,  not only
beautiful, but large and instructive.

Stephen Vincent
 http://stephenvincent.net/blog/
New blog site / same archives!