Part B

Uncommon Ground – Land Art in Britain

 The term Land Art brings to mind epic interventions in the land such as Robert Smithson’s Spiral Jetty, 6,500 tons of basalt, earth and salt projecting into Utah’s Great Salt Lake, or Roden Crater, an extinct volcano in Arizona, which James Turrell has been transforming into an immense naked-eye observatory since 1979.

Richard Long’s A Line Made By Walking, however, involved nothing more strenuous than a 20-minute train ride from Waterloo. Having got off somewhere in suburbia, the artist walked backwards and forwards over a piece of grass until the squashed turf formed a line – a kind of drawing on the land.

Emerging in the late Sixties and reaching a peak in the Seventies, Land Art was one of a range of new forms, including Body Art, Performance Art, Action Art and Installation Art, which pushed art beyond the traditional confines of the studio and gallery. Rather than portraying landscape, land artists used the physical substance of the land itself as their medium.

The message of this survey of British land art – the most comprehensive to date – is that the British variant, typified by Long’s piece, was not only more domestically scaled, but a lot quirkier than its American counterpart. Indeed, while you might assume that an exhibition of Land Art would consist only of records of works rather than the works themselves, Long’s photograph of his work is the work. Since his “action” is in the past the photograph is its sole embodiment.

That might seem rather an obscure point, but it sets the tone for an exhibition that contains a lot of black-and-white photographs and relatively few natural objects.

Long is Britain’s best-known Land Artist and his Stone Circle, a perfect ring of purplish rocks from Portishead beach laid out on the gallery floor, represents the elegant, rarefied side of the form. The Boyle Family, on the other hand, stand for its dirty, urban aspect. Comprising artists Mark Boyle and Joan Hills and their children, they recreated random sections of the British landscape on gallery walls. Their Olaf Street Study, a square of brick-strewn waste ground, is one of the few works here to embrace the mundanity that characterises most of our experience of the landscape most of the time.

Parks feature, particularly in the earlier works, such as John Hilliard’s very funny Across the Park, in which a long-haired stroller is variously smiled at by a pretty girl and unwittingly assaulted in a sequence of images that turn out to be different parts of the same photograph.

Generally however British land artists preferred to get away from towns, gravitating towards landscapes that are traditionally considered beautiful such as the Lake District or the Wiltshire Downs. While it probably wasn’t apparent at the time, much of this work is permeated by a spirit of romantic escapism that the likes of Wordsworth would have readily understood. Derek Jarman’s yellow-tinted film Towards Avebury, a collection of long, mostly still shots of the Wiltshire landscape, evokes a tradition of English landscape painting stretching from Samuel Palmer to Paul Nash.

In the case of Hamish Fulton, you can’t help feeling that the Scottish artist has simply found a way of making his love of walking pay. A typical work, such as Seven Days, consists of a single beautiful black-and-white photograph taken on an epic walk, with the mileage and number of days taken listed beneath. British Land Art as shown in this well selected, but relatively modestly scaled exhibition wasn’t about imposing on the landscape, more a kind of landscape-orientated light conceptual art created passing through. It had its origins in the great outdoors, but the results were as gallery-bound as the paintings of Turner and Constable.

41题选D：对应原文“Long is Britain’s best-known Land Artist and his Stone Circle, a perfect ring of purplish rocks from Portishead beach laid out on the gallery floor, represents the elegant, rarefied side of the form.”（朗是英国最著名的“土地艺术家”，他的作品“石环”所用石头是来自于波蒂斯黑德海滩，展示在画廊的地板上，体现了该类作品优雅和稀缺的一面） D选项represents the elegance of the British land art（体现了英国土地艺术中的优雅的特点），其中represent对应文中represent，elegance 对应文中elegant, British对应文中Britain’s, land art对应文中Land Artist.

42题选E：对应原文“Their Olaf Street Study, a square of brick-strewn waste ground, is one of the few works here to embrace the mundanity (尘俗) that characterises most of our experience of the landscape most of the time. E选项 depicts the ordinary side of the British land art，其中ordinary side是对原文mundanity和most of our experience的概括。

43题选G: 对应原文“Parks feature, particularly in the earlier works, such as John Hilliard’s very funny Across the Park, in which a long-haired stroller is variously smiled at by a pretty girl and unwittingly assaulted in a sequence of images that turn out to be different parts of the same photograph.” G选项contains images from different parts of the same photograph，其中contain对应原文in which, images from different parts of the same photograph与原文一致。

44题选C：对应原文 “Derek Jarman’s yellow-tinted film Towards Avebury, a collection of long, mostly still shots of the Wiltshire landscape, evokes（唤起） a tradition of English landscape painting stretching from Samuel Palmer to Paul Nash.”C选项reminds people of the English landscape painting tradition，其中reminds对应原文evokes，English landscape painting tradition对应a tradition of English landscape painting.

45题选A：对应原文 “…you can’t help feeling that the Scottish artist has simply found a way of making his love of walking pay. A typical work, such as Seven Days, consists of a single beautiful black-and-white photograph taken on an epic walk, …” A选项originates from a long walk that the artist took，其中a long walk 对应原文walking和epic walk (远足)，the artist took对应原文find a way of making his love of walking pay（找一种办法让他尝到了酷爱步行的回报），说明该艺术家喜欢步行，并在途中创作出作品。