In 1967, Richard Long, then twenty-two years old and a student at Saint Martin'sSchool of Art in London, walked back and forth along a straight line in the grass in the Englishcountryside, leaving a track that he then photographed in black and white. The resulting work, ALine Made by Walking, was not only the starting point for Long's career as an artist but also alandmark for a new kind of art emerging in Europe and the Americas. The formal simplicity of Long'sartwork suggested a relation to minimalism, but its location outside the gallery context and itssuggestion of bodily actions also connected it to a new generation of artists whose work combinedthe organic, the temporary, the nonmaterial, and the performative to offer a critique of the artsystem and its language, forms, and values. Long's work bridged the concerns of his North Americanand European counterparts, connecting the industrial scale of Robert Smithson to the modesty ofGilberto Zorio, the exercises in dematerialization of Robert Morris with the organic forms ofAlighiero e Boetti, and the performance of Yvonne Rainer with that of Joseph Beuys.Although A LineMade by Walking is an instantly recognizable work, no detailed analysis of this foundational piecehas yet been published. At a time when Richard Long's career is being celebrated and reassessed,this study by writer and curator Dieter Roelstraete could not be more timely.