A day long expanded seminar including performances and a film programme exploring themes related to Richard Long’s exhibition, TIME AND SPACE.
Throwing Stones is an expanded seminar which takes Richard Long’s exhibition at Arnolfini as a point of departure to explore a range of interconnected and critical concerns. The seminar will touch on ideas surrounding demarcation of time, visual poetry and landscape, eco-feminism and contemporary approaches to land art.
Reflecting Long’s practice, Throwing Stones will present a multiplicity of positions — a gathering of responses both contemporary and historical from invited artists, curators and writers. Taking the shape of a series of talks and presentations, the event will also include several artist films and performances.
Alongside the event, Field Working Number 7 1972, a seminal work by renowned conceptual and feminist artist, Marie Yates will be exhibited throughout the weekend in the Light Studio.
Contributors include:
Joy Sleeman, Alistair Rider, Martine van Kampen, Bryony Gillard & Phil Owen, Adam Rothstein, Ruth Proctor, Marie-Andrée Pellerin.
Joy Sleeman (Reader in Art History and Theory at UCL Slade School of Fine Art, and co-curator of Uncommon Ground: Land Art in Britain, 1966-1979 (Arts Council Collection and Hayward Touring, 2013-2014)) will present a talk focussing on Richard Long’s continuing engagement with his hometown of Bristol while simultaneously being part of an international – and particularly a transatlantic – avant-garde.
Art historian Alistair Rider (University of St Andrews) will discuss Richard Long as a topographer, considering his work within the context of late twentieth century sculpture exploring how best to convey a sense of landscape and place.
Marie-Andrée Pellerin is a visual artist based between Brussels and Montreal. Her current research in sculpture and performance focuses on the lifecycle of the objects that surround us. She will present a spoken word piece employing symbolic reference to a volcano as a metaphor for a continual re-articulation of matter.
Bryony Gillard and Phil Owen, Arnolfini’s Associate Curator and Archive Assistant respectively, will present a performance lecture responding to Marie Yates seminal bookwork A Critical Re-Evaluation of a Proposed Publication (1978).
Martine van Kampen will talk about her curatorial work on three projects, including the Land Art Live programme of artist interventions at six major Land Art works in the Dutch province of Flevoland. While focusing closely on works by artists involved, the talk will touch on the discrepancies between Land Art and public art, and on how a social perspective can be used to engage local audiences.
Artist and insurgent archivist Adam Rothstein will compare environmental art practices with the large-scale technological infrastructures that shape the way we inhabit our landscapes, exploring the idea of an ‘anthropocene aesthetic’ with reference specifically to the water infrastructure of southern California.
Ruth Proctor’s work often focuses on the ephemeral, on happenstance, the unstable or uncertain, positioning herself and her audience between here and there, now and then. Her most recent exhibitions, performances and commissions include: Performances at Irish Museum of Modern Art, Dublin, 2015 and On Dynamics and Monuments at Kunstverein Nurenberg, 2015.
The day will also include rare screenings of artists’ films by Nancy Holt (Breaking Ground: Broken Circle/Spiral Hill, 1971 – 2011), Marie Yates (Distance: On Not Going Home, 2015), and The Bureau of Inverse Technology (BIT Plane, 1999).
Ruth Proctor
A line made for Crossing, 2015
Chalk paint outside the Arnolfini entrance
As part of Throwing Stones, artist Ruth Proctor’s has made a playful intervention outside Arnolfini’s entrance.
Entitled A Line Made for Crossing, Proctor’s line is both a play on Richard Long’s work made in 1967, A Line Made by Walking and an investigation into the notion of crossing zones or borders. Drawn using temporary chalk paint, commonly used for marking sports fields; visitors are invited to engage with the work – consciously or unconsciously, by crossing the line to enter or exit the building.
Proctor is interested in the act of entering a space or place and how this modest action could reflect current issues surrounding border controls, crossings and rites of passage. Proctor’s line is made for crossing, not for holding back and could be seen as a way of talking about participation, re-enactment and time in a simple gesture.
Richard Long: TIME AND SPACE
This event accompanies the major exhibition TIME AND SPACE by Richard Long at Arnolfini, that explores the artist’s enduring relationship with the landscape of Bristol and the South West – a starting point for so many of his iconic works. This exhibition will bring together recreations of previous important works and entirely new commissions, both in the gallery and on The Downs, where the artist spent much of his childhood. The programme of events that accompanies the exhibition and offsite commission includes walks, talks and performances.
