Richard Long : walking the line.

The foremost British land sculptor Long (born 1945) has been walking for a long time. His journeys are lines of various directions and configurations, including circles, somewhat straight configurations, zigzags, etc. At his beginnings, along the way, and at his destinations, he and his work have literally engaged the earth and its geologic protrusions, excretions, visitors, and horizons, including structures built upon it, such as the concrete surfaces of outside malls and near buildings and the wooden and other floors of galleries and museums. Mud, clay, water, stones, sticks, grass, and sky are his materials, and by locations--juxtapositions, color, and textures--reveal and reinvent the landscape. His work is formally strong, contemplative, often startling, and always beautiful. This book explores his work since 1950 with a plethora of marvelous color and black-and-white photographs, entries from his diaries, and his Zen-like poetry juxtaposed with the images. The foreword is an essay, "The Intricacy of the Skein, the Complexity of the Web: Richard Long's Art," by Paul Moorhouse (Tate Modern); there is an interview with the artist by writer and art historian Hooker, and there are exhibition history and photo credits. An excellent revelation of Long's multifaceted work. ^BSumming Up: Highly recommended. General readers; lower-division undergraduates through faculty. J. Weidman Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art