Hamburg – Hamburger Kunsthalle (Magpie Line by Richard Long)

I think I like this, even though I have no clue what it is actually meant to be other than a large number of flints in a defined heap. The artist is though of international acclaim and there’s an interesting summary of his work on Wikipedia which reads:

“Several of his works were based around walks that he has made, and as well as land based natural sculpture, he uses the mediums of photography, text and maps of the landscape he has walked over. In his work, often cited as a response to the environments he walked in, the landscape would be deliberately changed in some way, as in A Line Made by Walking (1967), and sometimes sculptures were made in the landscape from rocks or similar found materials and then photographed. Other pieces consist of photographs or maps of unaltered landscapes accompanied by texts detailing the location and time of the walk it indicates.”

I like the idea of giving meaning to walking and its impact on the natural environment, so the underlying thought behind his works sounds intriguing.

The only slight limitation I have with this is that I don’t have a bloody clue what this artwork is trying to tell me. Insomuch that I carefully stood there and searched for the artwork on-line it worked as I wanted to find out more, but I’m just a little disappointed that I can’t get any real meaning from this. I could add my own meaning, but I could do that to anything and it’d likely just involve me imagining it’s a road to Greggs which the walker cannot stray off of.

The artist is still alive and, to my knowledge, exhibiting and creating artworks and I did think of going as far as contacting him and asking him about the work. But I couldn’t find any contact details and so I didn’t. Which is probably for the best, as I have no idea what I’m talking about at the best of times.