BRUSSELS.- Fondation CAB is presenting Along the Way, a solo exhibition dedicated to British artist Richard Long and the first in Belgium in over forty years. Along the Way stages important works from the artist’s oeuvre, featuring text works, photo works and sculptures.

His art practice counts as one of the most ground-breaking and pivotal ones of the 20th century, by establishing the precedent that art can be a journey and vice versa. The act of walking became the activity around which he constructed his practice, taking into account notions of time, space and distance and how these can be interpreted through human measurements and concepts.

SCULPTURES
At the heart of the exhibition is a brand-new commission created in-situ in response to Fondation CAB’s magnificent 1930s Art Deco architecture. The new installation – a dazzling white stone circle - and the three further sculptural works presented, Münsterland Stones , Flint Cross and Wallonia Line, express Long’s primary preoccupation: that of the position of the artist within the landscape. These minimal works reflect the enigma present in all his creations; namely transcending the ever-rooted distinction between the eccentricity of nature, with its uncontrollable and uneven shapes, and the rigidness of geometric forms conceived by mankind. Long’s practice evolves through a constant search for balance between these two models.

His compositions, whether they are installed in nature or in man-made contexts, are evocative of the megalithic arrangements of ancient civilisations and the rituals associated with them. Recalling primeval knowledge systems and a time when human life was more directly dictated by environment and season, Long responds to both the rhythms and the arbitrariness of nature.

Simultaneously, this translocation of organic substance probes questions on the disparity between the diverse natural regions from which they are sourced, and the artistic contexts in which he operates. This journey brings the work from specific geographical locations – both Long’s quotidian surrounding in Bristol as well as spectacular natural sites around the world – to the gallery space, which is in itself an anonymous space, an archetype almost with its own set of behavioural codes. This ambiguity between the primordial act of walking, the subtle interventions in nature and its manifestation in the gallery, leads to the conclusion that we should direct our gaze to nature similarly as how we look at art. In extent, we can equally look at the phenomena of the world as art, and attribute our personal and collective histories to them.

TEXT WORKS AND PHOTO WORKS
The text works and photographs in Along the Way are records of some of the artist’s many walks around the world. Carefully planning his routes according to particular distances, timeframes or to correspond with cosmic events, Long moves gently through nature, creating ephemeral works as he goes and leaving them to be weathered and reabsorbed by their surroundings. These elements presented in the exhibition are the footprints he leaves behind: the snapshots and methodical notes trace his journeys, the weather and the artworks made along the way. Here he charts various expeditions, ranging from the Highlands of Scotland to excursions in Ecuador, the lines of text mimicking his own pathways through the landscape.

WARLI HAND PRINTS
Both applied to floors and walls, Long eventually started drawing with mud on paper, underlining the directness and simplicity of the material as such. Especially tidal mud holds a big importance in his work, more specifically sourced from the River Avon in Bristol, where he lives and works. He accounts it as a geological manifestation, created by the movement of the lunar tides over millions of years – therefore bearing time within.

The formal aspects of the repetitive pattern of Long’s Warli Hand Prints, echoes an encounter he had with Indian artist Jivya Soma Mashe. In 1996, Long spent time discovering the art of the Warli tribe and getting to know their people, in Maharashtra (North of Mumbai, India). In this community, Long found common ground regarding the structuring of quotidian life in relation to the landscape, and a profound respect for nature.

ARCHIVES
In addition to this extensive and varied body of work, Along the Way equally features archival material documenting Richard Long’s artistic activity and productivity of the last decades. Testimonies of his artistic journey can be found in invitation cards, as well as original posters for exhibitions and gallery openings, coming from the meticulous and impressive archive collection from Gerard Vermeulen from Nijmegen. He has been collecting nearly every piece of communication on Long’s practice for over 40 years and curated the exhibition Richard Long - Images at the Museum Nairmac in Barneveld in 2016.

Richard Long was born in 1945 in Bristol, where he continues to live and work. After studying at the West of England College of Art, Bristol and subsequently at the Saint Martin's School of Art in London, he had his first solo exhibition at the age of 23 at Konrad Fischer Galerie in Dusseldorf in 1968. His practice is inscribed in the tradition of Land Art, which emerged in the 1960’s and 1970’s as a reaction against Pop Art and the consumer culture that had produced it, and instead proposed a return to nature and to our origins. In the spirit of his times, his work also has many connections to Minimal and Conceptual art, and also to the Arte Povera movement from Italy. He has received several significant awards for his work including the Turner Prize, which he won in 1989. Long has been the subject of numerous international exhibitions and his work is on permanent display in major museums across the world.

Along the Way reflects the foundation’s continued commitment to supporting the practice of minimal and conceptual art. Hubert Bonnet, Founder of Fondation CAB, says: ‘After four years of planning, I am proud to welcome Richard Long to Fondation CAB. This project exemplifies our direct engagement with artists in line with the Fondation’s mission of championing exceptional minimal art. Richard’s work embodies everything that is relevant and enticing in contemporary art: he is radical, relentless, and poetic.’