In Bordeaux, the CAPC recreates a work by Land Art star Richard Long

The reinstallation of Richard Long's "White Rock Line" at the CAPC in Bordeaux was completed on Thursday, July 24. Anne Cadenet, head of the museum's collections department, explains the reasons for this replacement.

The work "White Rock Line," originally commissioned in 1990 from British sculptor Richard Long, a star of Land Art, is a line of white stones: 18 tons of limestone rubble, aligned over 40 meters. Already recreated in 2014, it had to be replaced again this year due to plant colonization and soot deposits. The redesign of this classic of contemporary art is a textbook case, as the issue of art conservation has been radically transformed by the artistic practices of recent decades.

Why did you remake this work by Richard Long, instead of restoring it?

How do you restore a sculpture made of 18 tons of rubble? There are cleaning solutions using biocides, but this option is not feasible today. Lasers didn't produce satisfactory results. The solution was to find limestone geologically identical to the one used in 1990, as it was in 2014.

Where do the stones come from?

With my colleague Lilian Saly, head of patronage and partnerships, we found the Garandeau quarry, near Angoulême, which contained Upper Turonian limestone [around 93.9 and 89.8 million years ago, editor's note]. It's a stone identical to the one originally used in 1990. So we selected the rubble, which had to have a grain size and dimension roughly similar to those of 2014 and 1990.

What does the artist say about this redesign? You already had his approval in 2014...

I sent Richard Long a picture of the finished work a few days ago. He was delighted to see that this work was once again living on the terraces, in accordance with its original intention. We had his agreement, of course; he had also left the museum a sort of protocol explaining its creation, in which the aesthetic intention was specified. In 2014, he even came to check the conformity of what we had achieved with the new rubble.

Is it common to replace partial or complete works of art?

This is a somewhat new question. Here, we assume that it's a conceptual work and that as such, with the artist's agreement in this case, we are authorized to remake the piece according to terms that we will have discussed with him. For the 2014 version, there was a research program "Replace or remake?" and a consultation with the École supérieure des Beaux-Arts de Tours.

Will this work have to be redone every ten years?

Probably because it's an outdoor piece, not far from the public gardens in a city that's still subject to a certain amount of pollution. The work won't be able to remain immaculate white. Unless we find another solution by then, because in terms of restoration, research is moving very quickly.

On Thursday, July 31st, starting at 6 p.m., the CAPC invites you to a free evening event with two performances by the Compagnie des Limbes and a visit to the exhibition “The Invention of Everyday Life.” The Café du Musée by Vivants will be exceptionally open.