Robert Smithson (January 2, 1938 – July 20, 1973) was an American artist famous for his use of photography in relation to sculpture and land art. Read full biography of Robert Smithson →
When a finished work of 20th century sculpture is placed in an 18th century garden, it is absorbed by the ideal representation of the past, thus... →
Painting, sculpture and architecture are finished, but the art habit continues.
The museum spreads its surfaces everywhere, and becomes an untitled collection of generalizations that mobilize the eye.
A work of art when placed in a gallery loses its charge, and becomes a portable object or surface disengaged from the outside world.
Artists themselves are not confined, but their output is.
The scenic ideals that surround even our national parks are carriers of a nostalgia for heavenly bliss and eternal calmness.
Nature does not proceed in a straight line, it is rather a sprawling development.
Nature is never finished.
From the top of the quarry cliffs, one could see the New Jersey suburbs bordered by the New York City skyline.
An emotion is suggested and demolished in one glance by certain words.
Language operates between literal and metaphorical signification.
Language should find itself in the physical world, and not end up locked in an idea in somebody's head.
History is representational, while time is abstract; both of these artifices may be found in museums, where they span everybody's own vacancy.
Robert Smithson (January 2, 1938 – July 20, 1973) was an American artist famous for his use of photography in relation to sculpture and land art.