Robert Smithson, in The Crystal Land, talks about, yes, crystals, but he also talks about man-made quarries. His fascination seems to extend to both equally. While it’s easy to understand someone’s fascination with crystals, it is more difficult to see the relevance of quarries. There is a clear connection among the crystals, nature, ice, quarries, dashboard of “a complex of chrome fixed into an embankment of steel,” and other such details but the essence of it escapes me. Is this mostly a backlash against the gallery institution?
New Jersey….monuments? Again, he is fascinated with man-made things, and not just any man-made things, but ugly leftovers – like the quaries. I don’t know if his photos hung in a gallery, or if they were ever art commodities, but he is really bending the idea of art. Duchamp found objects and put them in a museum, and I know Smithson has as well, but here….what is he getting at? His writing is fantastic and he clearly has something in mind. But because of the overly philosophical nature of his writing I feel like we’re drifting away from a discussion of art.
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