Robert Smithson Quotes - Page 2

Quotes about:

• Painting, sculpture and architecture are finished, but the art habit continues.

  Robert Smithson

  Art, Sculpture, Architecture

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

  13 Copy quote

• The memory of what is not may be better than the amnesia of what is.

  Robert Smithson

  Memories, May, Amnesia

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.131, Univ of California Press

  4 Copy quote

• As long as cameras are around no artist will be free of bewilderment.

  Robert Smithson

  Artist, Long, Cameras

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• Art's development should be dialectical and not metaphysical.

  Robert Smithson

  Art, Development, Metaphysical

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

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• Visiting a museum is a matter of going from void to void.

  Robert Smithson

  Artist, Museums, Matter

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

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• Some artists imagine they've got a hold on this apparatus, which in fact has got a hold of them. As a result, they end up supporting a cultural prison that is out of their control

  Robert Smithson

  Artist, Facts, Holding On

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

  11 Copy quote

• The scenic ideals that surround even our national parks are carriers of a nostalgia for heavenly bliss and eternal calmness.

  Robert Smithson

  Artist, National Parks, Nostalgia

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

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• Art history is less explosive than the rest of history, so it sinks faster into the pulverized regions of time.

  Robert Smithson

  Art, Faster, Explosives

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

  54 Copy quote

• Words for mental processes are all derived from physical things.

  Robert Smithson

  Mental Illness, Illness, Process

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.61, Univ of California Press

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• Mistakes and dead-ends often mean more to these artists than any proven problem

  Robert Smithson

  Mistake, Mean, Artist

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

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• Objects in a park suggest static repose rather than any ongoing dialectic. Parks are finished landscapes for finished art .

  Robert Smithson

  Art, Ongoing, Landscape

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

  7 Copy quote

• Let's face it, the human eye is clumsy, sloppy, and unintelligible when compared to the camera's eye.

  Robert Smithson

  Eye, Cameras, Faces

  Robert Smithson (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, Univ of California Press

  4 Copy quote

• An emotion is suggested and demolished in one glance by certain words.

  Robert Smithson

  Artist, Emotion, Certain

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.61, Univ of California Press

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• The slurbs, urban sprawl, and the infinite number, of housing developments of the postwar boom have contributed to the architecture of entropy.

  Robert Smithson

  Numbers, Development, Architecture

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.13, Univ of California Press

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• Banal words function as a feeble phenomena that fall into their own mental bogs of meaning.

  Robert Smithson

  Fall, Bogs, Corny

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.61, Univ of California Press

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• Noon-day sunshine cinema-ized the site, turning the bridge and the river into an over-exposed picture. Photographing it with my Instamatic 400 was like photographing a photograph. The sun became a monstrous light-bulb that projected a detached series of stills through my Instamatic into my eye.

  Robert Smithson

  Eye, Sunshine, Light

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.70, Univ of California Press

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• Language thus becomes monumental because of the mutations of advertising

  Robert Smithson

  Artist, Mutation, Language

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.61, Univ of California Press

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• There is something abominable about cameras, because they possess the power to invent many worlds. As an artist who has been lost in this wilderness of mechanical reproduction for many years, I do not know which world to start with. I have seen fellow artists driven to the point of frenzy by photography.

  Robert Smithson

  Photography, Artist, Years

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.371, Univ of California Press

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• From the top of the quarry cliffs, one could see the New Jersey suburbs bordered by the New York City skyline.

  Robert Smithson

  New York, Artist, Cities

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.8, Univ of California Press

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• Language operates between literal and metaphorical signification

  Robert Smithson

  Artist, Language, Metaphorical

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.61, Univ of California Press

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• A camera is wild in just about anybody's hands, therefore one must set limits. But cameras have a life of their own. Cameras care nothing about cults or isms. They are indifferent mechanical eyes, ready to devour anything in sight. They are lenses of the unlimited reproduction.

  Robert Smithson

  Eye, Sight, Hands

  Robert Smithson, Jack D. Flam (1996). “Robert Smithson, the Collected Writings”, p.372, Univ of California Press

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