Richard Long, Connemara Sculpture (1971)

On a small headland near the town of Roundstone, it was comprised of beach pebbles. Map makers Tim Robinson (1935 – 2020) and Máiréad Robinson (1934 – 2020) sent a map of this work and others by Richard Long, who protested their recording of the sites. Robinson replied, “…once the artist has made an intervention in the landscape and left it there, it contributes to other peoples experience of place, which may well be expressed in someone’s else work of art.” He goes on to write, “…your marks on the landscape will have a career of their own; they are no longer defined by their origin in your creativity.”

“A work whose presence slowly becomes an absence performs a special type of work. The pattern of beach pebbles continues its conversation with the winds and the rain—the pebbles are there, though the sculpture may not be. Connemara sculpture has now become a form of signage pointing out its former location: “This is the place where Richard Long’s Connemara Sculpture once was.” The stones will inch away from each other without concession to any human intention other than the one that views all human aspirations as vanity.”

The location of the Connemara Sculpture June 2018

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