Robert Smithson Quotes

Quotes about:

• Instead of causing us to remember the past like the old monuments, the new monuments seem to cause us to forget the future

  Robert Smithson

  Artist, Past, Causes

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.11, Univ of California Press

  76 Copy quote

• One's mind and the earth are in a constant state of erosion, mental rivers wear away abstract banks, brain waves undermine cliffs of thought, ideas decompose into stones of unknowing, and conceptual crystallizations break apart into deposits of gritty reason.

  Robert Smithson

  Erosion, Ideas, Rivers

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.100, Univ of California Press

  35 Copy quote

• A work of art when placed in a gallery loses its charge, and becomes a portable object or surface disengaged from the outside world.

  Robert Smithson

  Art, World, Surface

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.154, Univ of California Press

  37 Copy quote

• Museums are tombs, and it looks like everything is turning into a museum.

  Robert Smithson

  Artist, Museums, Looks

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.42, Univ of California Press

  51 Copy quote

• Establish enigmas, not explanations.

  Robert Smithson

  Enigma, Explanation

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.63, Univ of California Press

  23 Copy quote

• Nature does not proceed in a straight line, it is rather a sprawling development.

  Robert Smithson

  Artist, Doe, Development

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.155, Univ of California Press

  26 Copy quote

• 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.

  Robert Smithson

  Art, Direct Effect, Elements

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.155, Univ of California Press

  19 Copy quote

• Nature is never finished.

  Robert Smithson

  Finished

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.155, Univ of California Press

  20 Copy quote

• Artists themselves are not confined, but their output is.

  Robert Smithson

  Art, Architecture, Output

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.154, Univ of California Press

  31 Copy quote

• Language should be an ever developing procedure and not an isolated occurrence.

  Robert Smithson

  Language, Procedures, Should

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.155, Univ of California Press

  6 Copy quote

• Parks are idealizations of nature, but nature in fact is not a condition of the ideal.

  Robert Smithson

  Artist, Parks, Facts

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.155, Univ of California Press

  19 Copy quote

• The museums and parks are graveyards above the ground- congealed memories of the past that act as a pretext for reality.

  Robert Smithson

  Memories, Past, Reality

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.156, Univ of California Press

  14 Copy quote

• For many artists the universe is expanding;
  for some it is contracting.

  Robert Smithson

  Artist, Expanding, Contracting

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.34, Univ of California Press

  8 Copy quote

• 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.

  Robert Smithson

  Important, One Day, Photograph

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.251, Univ of California Press

  16 Copy quote

• Language should find itself in the physical world, and not end up locked in an idea in somebody's head

  Robert Smithson

  Artist, Ideas, End Of The World

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.155, Univ of California Press

  12 Copy quote

• Artists are expected to fit into fraudulent categories.

  Robert Smithson

  Artist, Fit, Categories

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.154, Univ of California Press

  6 Copy quote

• A vacant white room with lights is still a submission to the neutral. Works of art seen in such spaces seem to be going through a kind of esthetic convalescence.

  Robert Smithson

  Art, White, Space

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.154, Univ of California Press

  79 Copy quote

• The museum spreads its surfaces everywhere, and becomes an untitled collection of generalizations that mobilize the eye.

  Robert Smithson

  Eye, Artist, Museums

  19 Copy quote

• Photographs are the results of a diminution of solar energy, and the camera is an entropic machine for recording gradual loss of light.

  Robert Smithson

  Loss, Light, Cameras

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.373, Univ of California Press

  10 Copy quote

• Questions about form seem as hopelessly inadequate as questions about content.

  Robert Smithson

  Hopeless, Form, Seems

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.11, Univ of California Press

  12 Copy quote

• Cultural confinement takes place when a curator imposes his own limits on an art exhibition, rather than asking an artist to set his limits.

  Robert Smithson

  Art, Limits, Asking

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.154, Univ of California Press

  86 Copy quote

• History is a facsimile of events held together by finally biographical information.

  Robert Smithson

  Artist, Together, Events

  6 Copy quote

• 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

  Museums, Vacancy, May

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.41, Univ of California Press

  18 Copy quote

• 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

  Robert Smithson

  Artist, Past, Garden

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.155, Univ of California Press

  75 Copy quote

• Abstraction is everybody's zero but nobody's nought.

  Robert Smithson

  Zero, Artist, Abstraction

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.42, Univ of California Press

  13 Copy quote

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