ARTISTS
Richard Long: Full Moon
Sperone Westwater is pleased to announce Richard Long鈥檚 17th exhibition with the gallery since his first in 1976. A new, monumental mud work, FULL MOON, 2025, will be presented alongside sculptures, photographs, and text-based works spanning more than three decades.
In FULL MOON, human and cosmic forces combine in a singular image. Long takes a direct and improvisational approach, leveraging gravity and his own bodily force when applying terra cotta directly onto the wall with his hand. Forging new connections between sculpture and nature, the human instinct for mark-making is continually evident in Long鈥檚 art.
Long began his practice of walking as a student in Bristol in the 1960s, making subtle sculptures in the landscape. The spirit of this creative act endures in Long鈥檚 art as he continues celebrating the natural world and the individual鈥檚 place within it. The traces of Long鈥檚 walks are evidenced in text-based works, photographs, and sculptures made along the way from materials of each place.
Each walk is a singular experience defined by its distance, duration, and route. Measuring his movement with standard units such as miles and days, Long also 鈥減lays with time,鈥� defining his walks by any number of formal parameters. His text work, Highland Time, 2002, reads: 鈥渁 winter walk of seventeen dreams/ crossing Creag Dhubh Cairn at a midday/ from a blizzard to a full moon rising/ while the Earth travels 5,740,000 miles in its orbit鈥� Long situates his walks within our planet鈥檚 vast and continuous celestial movements.
Long鈥檚 sculptural interventions, such as a line of stones placed on a path in Pacific Crest Trail Stones (Along a 20 Day Walk in the Sierra Nevada California) (2005), are inspired by materials characteristic of the terrain. Often formed into universal symbols like circles, crosses and spirals, these works also transcend language and specificity of place. As he notes, 鈥淪tones are what the world is made of, so I have the freedom to make art anywhere my walking takes me.鈥� Two new stone sculptures will be created in the gallery for the exhibition: one made of slate shingles and the other from flint from Norfolk, England.
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Sperone Westwater is pleased to announce Richard Long鈥檚 17th exhibition with the gallery since his first in 1976. A new, monumental mud work, FULL MOON, 2025, will be presented alongside sculptures, photographs, and text-based works spanning more than three decades.
In FULL MOON, human and cosmic forces combine in a singular image. Long takes a direct and improvisational approach, leveraging gravity and his own bodily force when applying terra cotta directly onto the wall with his hand. Forging new connections between sculpture and nature, the human instinct for mark-making is continually evident in Long鈥檚 art.
Long began his practice of walking as a student in Bristol in the 1960s, making subtle sculptures in the landscape. The spirit of this creative act endures in Long鈥檚 art as he continues celebrating the natural world and the individual鈥檚 place within it. The traces of Long鈥檚 walks are evidenced in text-based works, photographs, and sculptures made along the way from materials of each place.
Each walk is a singular experience defined by its distance, duration, and route. Measuring his movement with standard units such as miles and days, Long also 鈥減lays with time,鈥� defining his walks by any number of formal parameters. His text work, Highland Time, 2002, reads: 鈥渁 winter walk of seventeen dreams/ crossing Creag Dhubh Cairn at a midday/ from a blizzard to a full moon rising/ while the Earth travels 5,740,000 miles in its orbit鈥� Long situates his walks within our planet鈥檚 vast and continuous celestial movements.
Long鈥檚 sculptural interventions, such as a line of stones placed on a path in Pacific Crest Trail Stones (Along a 20 Day Walk in the Sierra Nevada California) (2005), are inspired by materials characteristic of the terrain. Often formed into universal symbols like circles, crosses and spirals, these works also transcend language and specificity of place. As he notes, 鈥淪tones are what the world is made of, so I have the freedom to make art anywhere my walking takes me.鈥� Two new stone sculptures will be created in the gallery for the exhibition: one made of slate shingles and the other from flint from Norfolk, England.
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