Before I forget, here’s a brief glimpse at another major exhibition I visited in London: Radical Nature: Art and Architecture for a Changing Planet – an RSA Arts & Ecology project at the Barbican Gallery.

From the RSA:
“The beauty and wonder of nature have provided inspiration for artists and architects for centuries. Since the 1960s, the increasingly evident degradation of the natural world and the effects of climate change have brought a new urgency to their responses. Radical Nature is the first exhibition to bring together key figures across different generations who have created utopian works and inspiring solutions for our ever-changing planet.

Work by pioneering figures such as the architectural collective Ant Farm and visionary architect Richard Buckminster Fuller, artists Joseph Beuys, Agnes Denes, Hans Haacke
and Robert Smithson, are shown alongside pieces by a younger generation of practitioners including Heather and Ivan Morison, R&Sie(n), Philippe Rahm and Simon Starling.”

Such a massive exhibition covering a huge range of territory! It was a privilege to experience the visionary ideas, dreams and projects of so many brilliant people all under one roof. Over the duration of the exhibition (it continues until 18th October), there is also a host of fascinating side-events, talks and off-site projects, which will make a huge impact, and reach thousands of people. There is The Dalston Mill for instance, created by EXYZT, an experimental and socially-engaged architectural collective. They have turned a disused railway site into a functioning windmill producing flour and bread, and offering a range of public activities and feasts.

Being a retrospective, I had seen many of the exhibits before. As I said, it was great to see this body of work all together. All were interesting, though some rather dated of course, and some downright distasteful – like the one pictured below – of Henrik Hakansson’s ‘Fallen Forest’ a section of rainforest attempting to grow sideways out of giant black plastic pots.

Which is why, I suppose, I was most intrigued with the architectural works. They were less familiar to me, being outside my usual frame of reference. I was particularly taken with R & Sie(n)’s representation of their termite-shaped building: ‘Symbiosishood’ inspired by the topography of its site, a former minefield on the border between North and South Korea. The exterior will be covered with an invasive native plant, kudzu, which will slowly colonise and make the building invisible. Sorry I can’t find any images of this, but here’s a link to some of their work. R & Sie (n).

I am, of course, a great fan of Buckminster Fuller, and saw his influence everywhere – from the Buckminster Fuller exhibit itself to the Air-Port-City of Tomas Saraceno – a utopian modular flying cell of conjoined ‘cities’ (See top picture).

Best of all I liked ‘I Am So Sorry. Goodbye’ by Heather and Ivan Morison – a sort of Tea House – positioned outside on the terrace of the Barbican, just at the water’s edge. Buckminster Fuller would have adored it. It’s a double-domed pavilion, based on his geodesic dome principle and made out of recycled pallet wood. I sat inside, grateful to hide for a few minutes from all the concrete and the harsh urban spaces. Sipping hibiscus tea, absorbing the sweet scent of warm wood and watching fluffy white clouds float by outside – all to the gentle background sound of trickling water – that was not a bad experience!

 

Please bear with the lengthy footage at the beginning, of notices and the stuffed wolf. You will see the Tea House towards the end of this clip.

I would like to have seen Agnes Denes’
‘Wheatfield-A Confrontation’, a restaging of her 1982 piece, where she planted two acres of wheat in Battery Park landfill, New York City. But I had grown tired, and it was enough just to know it was there.

There is no doubt the Radical Nature project is an extremely important landmark exhibition, and groundbreaking in the degree to which it reaches out to the public and integrates with real life as it is lived. It will for sure have a far-reaching influence for many years to come.

RADICAL NATURE Art and Architecture for a Changing Planet 1969 – 2009.
19 June – 18 October 2009. Barbican Art Gallery.

Info on Radical Nature and other projects on RSA Arts & Ecology-Projects

Tree Radical: 50 trees take to the streets of London.

Radical Nature  site

Barbican: Radical Nature

Buckminster Fuller video on Respond! Persist!

 

Here’s an atmospheric film by my friend Pamela, about the remote rural landscape of Tarset, Northumberland, where I recently lived for a year as artist-in-residence.

It is wonderful to see this film, and be reminded of places I knew intimately through walking and walking, observing and being. Thanks Pamela!

As the artist herself says,this is  “a land of contrasts and subtle changes.”
Stillness and movement, sound and silence… Gentle birdsong, a passing fly and the bleating of distant sheep, to the insistent roar of fast-moving water-all are background music to an undercurrent of deep silence.

Even occasional signs of modern everyday life – a passing motor vehicle or an aeroplane miles up in the sky – only serve to intensify the peace and the bottomless silence of the land.

That’s my take on the film, anyway! Though it may be coloured by my own memories and experience of the place.

BORDERLINE is a new film, first shown at Northumbria University’s conference “Northernness: Ideas and Images of North in Visual Culture” on 26 June 2009.

See more of Pamela Robertson Pearce’s work on Neil Astley’s  page  on Vimeo.

Heaven and Earth: Richard Long Retrospective at Tate Britain, London.

We are embedded within heaven and earth. It is our real identity. There is not a lot more to say, though as a species, we seem to make an awful lot of fuss and noise as we make our way through the world.

For me, this fundamental reality is the continuing message of Richard Long’s work, though others might approach it differently. It is what I say when people ask me ‘Why does he keep on making those stone circles, year after year?’ It is the most important message anyone could give, and it bears repeating. And of course every circle is different, depending on the place, the time and the circumstances – and there is infinitely more to his practice than just the circles. Underlying it all, there is the walking, the passing through the landscape.

 The famous photograph: ‘A Line Made by Walking’ (made whilst still a student in 1967) was one of the exhibits in this Tate Britain retrospective. This simple work now seems to encapsulate an entire era – a time when currents of minimalism, conceptualism and land art were at play, and there was growing interest in Eastern philosophy. But at the time, it must have appeared a startling departure from orthodox sculptural practice.

 

Richard Long
A Line Made by Walking 1967

 

 

 

 

 

 
 

 

“My art is in the nature of things

I like the idea of making something from nothing

I can walk all day and sleep all night following an idea

I use the land without need of ownership

My talent as an artist is to walk across a moor
or place a stone on the ground

My work is about movement and stillness
the walking and the stopping places
it can be passing by or leaving a mark

I use intuition and chance body and mind
time and space

I use the world as I find it”
(from the exhibition brochure)

Richard Long began walking as an art form as a way of considering scale, distance, dimensionality, time and space, and has been doing it ever since. The walks are often documented by photography, text or maps as appropriate, and these become artworks in their own right. It was very satisfying for me to see such an extensive body of work all together – and to recognise many old friends that I have long known in reproduction.

I was particularly interested in his use of black and white photography, which together with lettering and printing techniques, both ‘dated’ the works and also gave a sense of an endless journey through time.

His focus is upon the landscape. Whether his walks have been taken close to home in England, or in remote areas of the world such as the Sahara or the Arctic Circle, there is, on the whole, no sign of human activity in the photographs – only the signs of his own passing through.

 

Richard Long
A Line in Scotland 1981
© Copyright the artist

The familiar smell of mud as I first walked into the gallery, and Long’s handprints covering an enormous area of wall, gave me an immediate sense of a particular place in nature (in this case, the River Avon near Bristol) . At the same time I felt a sort of primal urge to become involved and integrated into the land in the same way. There were a number of other large-scale mud works, and some large stone pieces, simple, archetypal forms, but dense in meanings and resonances.  All of these had a similar double-sided effect: the evocation of ‘place’ and a silent insistent invitation to go deeper.
The appeal is to the physical senses. The books, photographs, maps, poetry and textual works take you there by a different route.

RAILWAY LINE
A PAIR OF BUZZARDS
THISTLES
IRISHMAN’S WALL
WHITEHORSE HILL
STATT’S HOUSE …….
(from ‘A Straight Northward Walk across Dartmoor’ England 1979.)

I was so happy to find myself coming out into the vast central gallery containing the six massive stone works, stunning in their physicality, their simplicity of form and the absolute precision of geometry within this space.
I lingered amongst the stones, every one unique, every one in its place, complementing each other and the wall-based works I had just seen. The whole gallery seemed to vibrate with life.

To see the stones, you will need to look at The Richard Long Newsletter (under ‘Current Exhibitions’)

Heaven and Earth is a memorable and awe-inspiring exhibition, which gave me an experience of being held safe within the forces of the universe. But, towards the end of the exhibition, some enormous colour prints brought me jarringly up-to-date, reminding me of tourist advertising: nature as commodity. I didn’t care for these at all! On reflection though, I can see that Long has once again knocked the edges of our comfort zones: indirectly drawing attention to currently prevailing attitudes and their environmental consequences.

Whatever form it takes – photographs, maps, text, walking, or works with stone, sticks, mud or water – Richard Long’s art is grounded in direct engagement with the land, and tells us of our true nature.

Richard Long’s official site has a huge amount of information on his work: http://www.richardlong.org

And you will find details of his exhibitions, including many superb shots of ‘Heaven and Earth’ on The Richard Long Newsletter (under ‘Current Exhibitions’). Heartily recommended.

There is also a wonderful review by Jonathan Jones in The Guardian, titled ‘A Hymn of Love to the Earth’

‘ Heaven and Earth’ runs until 6^th September, at London’s Tate Britain: www.tate.org.uk

Some things in England don’t change very much over the years – sadly, our red telephone boxes have mostly been flogged off and you don’t see that many helmeted bobbies on the beat nowadays -  but come this time of year, you can still see village fetes springing up all over the country. This one took place at the weekend on the Vicarage lawn at Northam.

See also http://bidefordmanteo.blogspot.com/

Passing on this important info from William Shaw of RSA Arts & Ecology.

Hello people,

This is worth signing if you get a second:

http://www.foe.co.uk/climatetalks/petition.html

It’s the Friends of the Earth petition to world leaders in the run up to COP 15. It ends with the stirling lines:

We will not accept anything less from our international representatives in the climate negotiation.

Oh no!  it’s the gull chick season again! Just look what I found under the car  a couple of hours ago. I christened him Fudgie. I think that was a mistake.

The gulls nest on our chimneys every year despite our best efforts with metal spikes and toy pop-guns. The year before last was particularly horrendous when first one chick fell into the garden, then another on to our lower roof. All summer long, we endured a state of inter-species warfare. The parent gulls dive-bombed us every time we ventured outside, and we took to going out in twos, brandishing brooms and umbrellas.  The cats were terrified and I had to keep smelly litter trays inside..

But just look at his brave little face, and his little fluffy bits, still wet from where he fell out of the egg.  I feel so mean at being nasty to his mum and dad. (Not that they notice!)

Sitting in my bedroom feeling low – the ginger cat rushes upstairs howling, and sits his bare bum on my bare foot. He’s the one I rescued as a kitten 11 years ago, and who shivered silently for a year until he learned how to purr.

Neighbours are talking quietly outside my front door. We exchange greetings. I pause to chat to a mother settling her small daughter into the car.

Driving on to the Burrows, I stop to allow the horses to come across the little bridge. They take their time. Another driver comes up behind them, and forces them into a trot. I try to give him a disapproving look as he passes, but unfortunately burst out laughing at myself, ending up looking like a deranged lunatic.

An elderly man walking slowly and laboriously arrives back at his car, accompanied by a collie. I can see they have had a good time. The dog is panting. His feathery tail is blowing in the wind. He drops the ball from his mouth, and it is put into the car.

The man puts down a plastic bowl for water - but it blows away across the grass. He manages to catch it and fill it from a plastic bottle. He touches the dog’s shoulder, then touches the bowl with pointed finger. The dog drinks. The man refills the bowl, and again touches the dog, then touches the bowl, and the dog drinks again.

A flock of starlings rises up into the sky, turns and swerves into the light and disappears. I wish I could find a way to express the corresponding circling movement inside my body.

A couple come along. They have been for a walk – except that the woman can barely move. She has a Zimmer frame, and they inch along to the side of their car. The man brings out a stick for her to lean on whilst he turns the Zimmer frame to the edge of the grass. I watch them negotiate the last few feet. They are both fairly old, but the man is much bigger, stronger and fitter than the woman. He moves briskly, quietly. Everything gets packed away and they drive off. I know he will spend all his waking hours and minutes caring for the woman’s needs.

I haven’t actually got on to the Burrows yet, but it is time to go home for lunch.

The UN World Environment Day was set up in 1972 to stimulate worldwide awareness of the environment and enhance political attention and public action.

The United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is also sponsoring a “Twitter for Trees” program, promising to plant a tree for every new follower at UNEPandYou on Twitter by today. There is still time to help them reach 10,000. Last time I looked it was 9,358!

 

Whatever one may think about all the hype concerning climate instability, global warming and other environmental issues, it’s for sure that special days like World Environment Day do remind us that we are  all interconnected. As Chief Seattle, the Native Americal Chief  is reported to have said: “

“Man did not weave the web of life – he is merely a strand in it.
Whatever he does to the web, he does to himself.” Chief Seattle, 1854.

 

Links: Larry West’s article : Today is World Environment Day on About.com’s “Guide to Environmental Issues”.

United Nations Environment Programme http://www.unep.org/wed/2009/english/

Today I dropped off some work at the Broomhill Art Hotel, hidden in the steep, densely-wooded Devon hills. I wandered into the Sculpture Park, but but spent all my time sitting under the trees gazing into the sparkling stream.

I got to see Franny Armstrong’s ‘The Age of Stupid’ last night. Well worth seeing. It stars Pete Postlethwaite as the last remaining survivor in the year 2055, on a planet devastated by climate breakdown. He sits in front of a screen in a massive archive of human history – taking us with him as he browses through recent events , and again and again asking the obvious question: ‘why did humanity not stop this from happening whilst it had the chance? Why did it rush headlong, and consciously, into suicide?’

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

We see footage of hurricane Katrina; Iraqui refugees; people dying in Nigeria through air pollution and lack of clean water; anti-windfarm activists, who would rather shoot their neighbours than have their ‘view spoilt/value of their house go down’; an Indian flight entrepreneur, who aims to make flying so cheap it can be afforded by the very poorest of the poor… a seemingly disparate assortment of people, situations and occurrences – yet we are enabled to make links and form our own conclusions.

Yes – we may have heard it all before, to the point of boredom – but this film kept me interested and entertained (if that’s the right word) throughout. Story-telling has always been the most potent way of communicating the facts of life, and here the power of the movie and modern technology is used graphically and dramatically to great effect.

The film is unconventional not only in the way it was produced, but in the revolutionary new way it is being distributed. Indie Screenings  has been set up so that anyone anywhere can screen it, and keep the profits for themselves or for their campaign.

If there is one single message to take away from ‘The Age of Stupid’, it is that we in the developed world must all drastically reduce our oil-based energy consumption – fast. The operative words here are ‘drastic’ and ‘fast’. It is not simply a matter of sending our plastic bottles to the recycling centre. The changes needed are likely to be a bit more uncomfortable than that.

Climate Change is perhaps the biggest challenge that humanity has ever faced – and without any doubt, time is of the essence. The Indie system of screening was set up so this message could spread around the world fast, like a virus. Anyone can get hold of the film, get a few friends together and watch it in their front room – or anywhere.

To hire the film, you can register with Indie Screenings  right now.

Some links: http://ageofstupid.net/notstupid

                        www.indie-screenings.net

                        http://www.northdevonbiosphere.org.uk/ 

                       http://lowcarbonlifestyle.org 

Here’s a guide to calculating your carbon footprint, written by Mukti Mitchell, who lives just along the coast here in North Devon, and who, a couple of years ago, sailed around Britain in a zero-emission yacht to promote low-carbon lifestyles. It contains lots of handy tips and information for everyday life. Called ‘A Guide to Low Carbon Lifestyles’, it can be downloaded free at http://lowcarbonlifestyle.org/guide.html.

Now I am off now to see a performance by Aboriginal musician, artist and performer, Noel Butler, who has come from Australia to appear at the fabulous Appledore Festival. It is called “The Story that belongs to Me”.

Is there a connection, do I hear you ask? Yes there is. We are all a part of one living Earth.

After some days of stormy weather I sat in the sun by the mud flats today, sketching. It’s a very long time since I have done this: I am not much of a one for a detailed ‘finished’ drawing. I prefer to catch the fleeting moment in some way or other – though I do find drawing a wonderful way of making notes and sharpening the observation.

On my way, I spent some time with the horses, whilst overhead a skylark sang non-stop.