Uncommon Ground - Land Art in Britain

Uncommon Ground - Land Art in Britain 1966 -1979, Mead Gallery, University of Warwick, February 2014.

The visit to the above exhibition a couple of weeks ago has helped me clarify a number of the themes in Voceti. I'm pleased that I bought the companion catalogue too, not only does it expand on some of the individual artist's ideas, but the sections on broader cultural themes help put my project into context. 

 Artists - some notes:

Keith Armatt 1930 - 2009

A leading figure in the British conceptual art movement, he moved into photography which questioned the legacy of the picturesque in the British landscape. His work 'The Visitors (1976)  and A.O.N.B. (1982 - 84) take somewhat disallusioned view of the celebrated 'scenic route' in the Wye Valley. (p.16).

John Hilliard b. 1945

Hilliard often precedes his expeditions into landscape with sketches in which an idea is formulated and then searched for in real space, thus reversing the process of naturalism or the scenic in photography. (P.38).

John Latham, 1921  - 2006.

Most notable is his work with the Art Placement Group (APG) where his enquiry into derelict land led him to propose the designation of huge shale bings in West Lothian, Scotland as monuments.

APG's  axiom that the context is half the work, could stand as a mantra for much of the new landscape art being made on Britain the 1960s and 70s.

Lathams theories of the importance of the axis of time and event (rather than space and matter) and his belief in the efficacy of visual art as a language, present profound challenges to conventional understandings of relationships between humans and their environment, asking us to see ecology as primarily time--based rather than merely spatial or material. (p.44).

Richard Long b. 1945

Stone Circle (1972) is one of the first stone circles that Long made ....there are 61 stones,selected from a beach not far from his home in Portishead. .. his has been one of the most consistent and intense engagements with the subject (land art)  (p. 46).

(NB. Belonging versus exile)

 Roelof   Louw b. 1935

By 1969 he had taken a decidedly Conceptual turn, making works that were executed in the landscape (...) to a set of procedural specifications

Louw is also an accomplished writer and thinker.  (...). These include the work of landscape designers such as Lancelot  Capability Brown, Humphrey Repton, and Frederick Law Olmsted (all interested) in the theory of the picturesque and the idea of genius of place. (p.48).

Anthony McCall b. 1946

Landscape for fire (1972) is a staged event (..) scored in three movements and involved the choreographed filling and lighting of pans of gasoline  arranged on a six by six grid.

....his work is suggestive of ancient rituals such as the lighting of beacons to mark auspicious events.  (p.50)