Dimensions: 4540 x 145500 mm
Copyright: © Richard Long | CC-BY-NC-ND 4.0 DEED, Photo: Tate
Editor: This is Richard Long's *Waterfall Line*, a site-specific mural at the Tate. The stark contrast really strikes me. What do you see when you look at the work? Curator: The composition is bisected into two distinct registers. Observe the upper field of swirling grey marks, a stark contrast to the dense vertical lines cascading below. Editor: So, the two visual registers are the key? Curator: Precisely. Note how Long uses this division to explore the relationship between surface and depth, the tangible and the ephemeral. The line itself is the subject. Editor: That's fascinating – I hadn't considered the interplay between those two visual planes before. Curator: Indeed, Long prompts us to focus on the raw, intrinsic elements of mark-making itself. The materiality of the line is his language. Editor: I’ll definitely think about that the next time I encounter his art!
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This is a site-specific wall-painting, commissioned for the opening of Tate Modern in May 2000. It comprises a long rectangular area of wall painted black, at which the artist slung white river mud, scrubbing and wiping it with his gloved hands to create a swirling, striped pattern resembling the trace left by an enlarged and simplified paintbrush. This is the texture resulting from outstretched fingers. Long worked in this way on a narrow strip along the top of the black rectangle, allowing the mud to splatter down the broader strip of black background below, creating a pattern reminiscent of Chinese calligraphy brush strokes depicting the leaves of bamboo or an uneven fall of torrential rain. Long’s painting represents literally a waterfall, since it consists of marks made by water, diluted by silt creating mud, falling down the wall. The strong vertical lines created by sliding blobs of mud convey a sense of powerful physical energy as the artist worked quickly and vigorously with his material. A line of solid white expanding into millions of tiny dots at the very base of the work, where the wall joins the floor, resembles the intense spray at the base of a waterfall, where liquid hits a surface of strong resistance and is shot back upwards. This emphasises the sense of energy in the creation of the work. Long has commented:
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