Uncommon Ground: Land Art in Britain 1966–1979

Southampton City Art Gallery is privileged to be the opening venue for the tour of Uncommon Ground; a touring exhibition from the Arts Council Collection.

Curated by Nicholas Alfrey, Joy Sleeman and Ben Tufnell, this exhibition features work by some of the most important British artists of the last 50 years including Tony Cragg, Hamish Fulton, Antony Gormley, Richard Long and Anthony McCall, amongst others. In the late 1960s artists on both sides of the Atlantic turned away from the enclosed space of the gallery and went out into the landscape to forge a new form of art. This art was made in radically new ways often using earth, water, sun and even fire as raw materials, and went under several names: Land Art, earth art, process art, and conceptual art. Uncommon Ground: Land Art in Britain 1966–1979 takes a fresh look at the art of this period and considers what was particular about the way Land Art developed in Britain.

Image Credit: Anthony McCall, Landscape for Fire II (1972), 16mm film still, Arts Council Collection, Southbank Centre London. Gift of the artist and Sprüth Magers Gallery, London. © the artist