cavetocanvas:

Richard Long, Red Slate Circle, 1980

From the Guggenheim:

Long translates his deeply personal experiences in the wilderness into sculptures and mud drawings that are created for exhibition spaces and private collections. Pieces composed of flint, slate, feathers, pine needles, sticks, and other rustic materials become metaphors for the paths taken on his ramblings: the spirals, circles, and lines, if extended beyond the gallery walls, would trace actual distances traveled by the artist. The sculptures are not, therefore, representations of nature per se but rather aesthetic documents of Long’s engagement with the land and poetic evocations of the beauty and grandeur of the earth. Such is the case with Red Slate Circle, which consists of 474 stones from a New York State quarry. When it is installed in the Guggenheim’s rotunda, the monumental ring echoes the building’s unique spiral while conjuring images of vast canyons, still lakes, and stone pathways leading into the distance.