Richard Long: The Spike Island Tapes, Alan Cristea Gallery

It’s not often that an artist as seasoned as Richard Long starts working with a new medium, and it’s even more unusual when the gallery itself has made the suggestion. All the more reason not to miss the artist’s first exhibition at Alan Cristea, 31 Cork Street.
Richard Long Alan Cristea London exhibition
Sculptor Richard Long, four-time nominee of the Turner prize, and cornerstone of British Land Art, presents seventeen new monumental carborundum relief prints. They are the largest he’s ever made and comprise some of his most colourful works to date.
Richard Long techniques
Although he is no newcomer to the print processes of silkscreen, etching and lithography, it is the first time he has worked with carborundum relief painting. The particular technique was suggested as it enables him to work directly with his hand on the plate, replicating the technique he uses for his mud works.
Working off twelve 4 x 8 aluminium plates, Long explores different ways of manipulating the medium: propping them against walls, creating hand marks, printing in mud-coloured, bright red and green inks, and even masking out shapes before covering the plates with paste using his bare hands.
Spike Island Tapes Alan Cristea
The exhibition title, Spike Island Tapes, is a play on the names The Nashville Tapes, songs recorded by Bob Dylan and Johnny Cash 46 years ago, and Spike Island, the art centre in Bristol where Long made his prints. Long regarded the process of making prints at Spike Island as akin to a musician recording tracks in a studio, and he’s named each print after a song.
So if you’re looking for things to do in west London - Alan Cristea exhibits a vivid assortment of works, some earthy and sensual in tone, others vibrant and sunny. It’s certainly proof that Long still has it in him.