Richard Long's Carte Blanche at Mamac, Nice

In 2004, the Musée d'Art Moderne et d'Art Contemporain (Mamac) in Nice invited British artist Richard Long to create a wall piece for the group exhibition Intra-Muros. In 2008, the museum granted him a carte blanche, presenting recent works and several in situ pieces across four spaces. The first room features three ground sculptures made of stones from La Turbie, site of the Trophée d'Auguste, arranged in primitive forms (spiral, arc, semicircle). The semicircle, reminiscent of a Romanesque church apse, uses a color gradient darkening outward. A corridor displays old Tuareg tent pegs, each marked with a white fingerprint from the artist's index finger, referencing his nomadic walking practice. The second room, painted black, contains White Water Falls, a gestural work of kaolin whirlpools applied with gloves, creating a dramatic contrast. The third room confronts mud wall compositions, landscape photographs, and conceptual pieces with poetic statements about Long's walks. The mud paintings use earth from Vallauris. The exhibition closes with photographs subtitled in pencil, showing the subtle displacement of natural elements in the landscape. The exhibition ran from May 31 to November 16, 2008.