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Glen Tamanisdale Isle of Lewis a Five Day 100 Mile Walk Outer Hebrides Scotland, Early 1976
Artist
Hamish Fulton
(English, born 1946)
Date1976
MediumGelatin silver print
DimensionsUnframed: 43 3/4 x 99 in. (111.13 x 251.46 cm)
Framed: 40 3/4 x 99 1/4 x 1 1/2 in. (103.51 x 252.1 x 3.81 cm)
Framed: 40 3/4 x 99 1/4 x 1 1/2 in. (103.51 x 252.1 x 3.81 cm)
Credit LineCollection of the Modern Art Museum of Fort Worth, Museum purchase made possible by a grant from The Burnett Foundation
Object number1995.1
Status
Not on viewCopyright© Hamish Fulton
Category
Label TextSince 1969, Hamish Fulton’s art has stemmed from journeys he has made in various landscapes. Although he modestly refers to his artworks as “walks,” Fulton’s massive global project has led him to traverse thousands of miles on five continents. As a student at St. Martin’s School of Art in London from 1966 to 1968, Fulton was one of a new generation of sculptors, including Richard Long and the performance art duo Gilbert & George, who strove to reorient British sculpture away from the Surrealism of Henry Moore and the industrial formalism of Anthony Caro toward a more conceptual approach to artmaking. Fulton’s crucial decision in those years was to not make art isolated in his studio but to carry his studio on his back (tent, camping utensils, journal, pen, and camera) and engage the world on foot.
The essence of a Fulton walk is simply “being there” in the landscape; not “picturing” a scenic viewpoint but humbly communicating the process of navigating and living in it through works that are part document, part poetic memory. In the early 1970s, Fulton began to seek out places that were, in his words, “more inhabited by nature than people.” The Museum’s composite panoramic photograph of partially sunlit, undulating hills and peaks on a remote island to the northwest of Scotland depicts precisely such a location. The work constitutes a genuinely awe-struck stare over the horizon, posing questions and evoking emotions about what a skyline symbolizes—a distant, often ungraspable end to a journey and the mystery of what lies beyond our given place and time.
The essence of a Fulton walk is simply “being there” in the landscape; not “picturing” a scenic viewpoint but humbly communicating the process of navigating and living in it through works that are part document, part poetic memory. In the early 1970s, Fulton began to seek out places that were, in his words, “more inhabited by nature than people.” The Museum’s composite panoramic photograph of partially sunlit, undulating hills and peaks on a remote island to the northwest of Scotland depicts precisely such a location. The work constitutes a genuinely awe-struck stare over the horizon, posing questions and evoking emotions about what a skyline symbolizes—a distant, often ungraspable end to a journey and the mystery of what lies beyond our given place and time.