Uncommon Ground - Land Art in Britain: Landscapes and Environments

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

Landscapes and Environments

 Parks and Commons (p.78-79)

 In 1980 it was suggested by Marian Shoard, in her book,  This Land is Our Land, that over 87% of Britain's land is privately  owned. Given that reality, even an action as simple as walking in the British landscape has an implicit politics and necessarily involves a complex tracking of owned, managed and demarcated space

Streams, Rivers and Estuaries (p. 83 - 86 )

Given that Wordsworth's Duddon Sonnets are a key point of reference for my project, then the role that rovers played in the Work of Long, Fabian Miller and Nash provides an interesting link to romanticism, however the minimalism and 'spare' aesthetic of Land art represents more of a radical critique of tradition rather than a revival or homage.

Uplands (p.86 - 87)

Similar positioning can be noted in relation to Uplands and mountainous terrain:

Long's contribution to When Attitudes Become Form  (Kunsthalle Bern, 1969) - a bold statement relating to his work, A Walking Tour in the Bernese Oberland  - might be taken as a parody of the Romantic journey undertaken by nineteenth century poets and painters, and a denial of what we might expect of the scenic tour.