Robert Smithson
Robert Smithson
Robert Smithsonwas an American artist famous for his use of photography in relation to sculpture and land art...
NationalityAmerican
ProfessionArtist
Date of Birth2 January 1938
CountryUnited States of America
Robert Smithson quotes about
eye museums surface
The museum spreads its surfaces everywhere, and becomes an untitled collection of generalizations that mobilize the eye.
one-day important photograph
One day the photograph is going to become even more important than it is now.... But I am not particularly an advocate of the photograph.
past garden social-values
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 reinforcing political and social values that are no longer with us
ideas world language
Language should find itself in the physical world, and not end up locked in an idea in somebody's head
art direct-effect elements
I am for an art that takes into account the direct effect of the elements as they exist from day to day apart from representation.
museums may vacancy
History is representational, while time is abstract; both of these artifices may be found in museums, where they span everybody's own vacancy
zero artist abstraction
Abstraction is everybody's zero but nobody's nought.
lines doe development
Nature does not proceed in a straight line, it is rather a sprawling development.
artist museums matter
Visiting a museum is a matter of going from void to void.
enigma explanation
Establish enigmas, not explanations.
art asking exhibitions
Cultural confinement takes place when a curator imposes his own limits on an art exhibition, rather than asking an artist to set his limits.
art world surface
A work of art when placed in a gallery loses its charge, and becomes a portable object or surface disengaged from the outside world.
memories past reality
The museums and parks are graveyards above the ground- congealed memories of the past that act as a pretext for reality.
finished
Nature is never finished.