Robert
Smithson
by Eugenie Tsai (Ed.)
University of California Press, Berkeley
and Los Angeles, 2004
280 pp, illus. 76 b/w and 40 col. Paper,
$29.95
ISBN: 0520244087.
Robert
Smithson: Learning from New Jersey and
Elsewhere
by Ann Reynolds
The MIT Press, Cambridge, MA, 2005
384 pp. illus. 91 b/w, 9 col. Paper, $24.95
ISBN: 0262681552.
The Diatrope Institute,
PO Box 6813,
Santa Rosa CA 95406-0813
ione@diatrope.com
Jorge Luis Borges, one of the most
celebrated authors of the twentieth century,
once penned a series of book reviews critiquing
books that had never been written. In
true Borgesian fashion, he explained that
since people seemed more inclined to read
the reviews, sometimes not finding time
for the book itself, it seemed that producing
only the critique was a better approach.
His caricature of reading habits in our
fast-paced lives came to mind as I wondered
how I might enthusiastically encourage
others to read Robert Smithson
and Robert Smithson: Learning from
New Jersey and Elsewhere, the two
books that are the subject of this review.
Neither of these full-bodied volumes can
be captured in this short piece. Given
this, let me begin by saying that all
who have an interest in Robert Smithsons
impact on contemporary art should put
this review aside and turn to the books
directly.
Fully illustrated, and augmented by writings
by Eugenie Tsai, Alexander Alberro, Suzaan
Boettger, Mark Linder, Ann Reynolds, Jennifer
L. Roberts, Richard Sieburth, Robert A.
Sobieszek, Moira Roth, Robert Smithson,
Cornelia H. Butler and Thomas E. Crow,
Robert Smithson was conceived for
the comprehensive American retrospective
of Smithsons work, opening at the
Whitney Museum in June. (It began at the
Museum of Contemporary Art, Los Angeles
and recently closed at the Dallas Museum
of Art.) Smithsons knack for bridging
incongruent perspectives comes across
well in this over-size volume, as does
his multi-layered legacy. Well-chosen
photographs of his works (drawings, sculptures,
nonsites, etc.) are mixed with cultural
images as well as photographs of his excursions,
giving this artist a dynamic presence
despite being confined to the staid pages
of the book. As one would expect of a
catalogue, this publication offers many
topical essays on this artists complex
and highly influential career as well
as an overview of his short life. Born
in 1938, Smithson died prematurely in
1973 when the plane he was using to survey
a site crashed. Yet, as the catalogue
details, the reach of his work is extraordinary.
What I liked most about the presentation
was the way his drawing, "A Surd View
for an Afternoon, 1970", used on the cover,
captured his coarseness, complex mind,
and range of thought. A surd is defined
as something that is irrational and voiceless.
Sketched during an interview conducted
in 1969, and signed in 1970, Smithsons
surd map spins us around the time and
space he develops, deploys, and re-configures
in his projects. The scratchy composite,
on a piece of graph paper, offers a glimpse
of the gyrations of his mind. Comprised
of diagrammatic markings, explanatory
words, directions and several of his signature
motifs (the spiral, a map of New Jersey,
and words we tend to find in discussions
of his work such as perception, nonsite
and entropy), it is a map, a mirror, and
a plan. Its vertiginous quality is explained
to some degree in the books foreword,
written by Jeremy Stick. Stick tells the
reader that the difficulty in coming to
grips with this far-reaching and paradoxical
artist comes about due to the way Smithson
extended the scope of his work outwards
to more and more distant locations. Yet,
at the same time, he continued to integrate
an awareness of the museum, gallery, and
art world in general in his projects.
How this worked within his practice is
unpacked by Thomas Crow to some degree
when he speaks of Smithsons pursuit
of the spiral. Zoning in on this one motif,
Crow illustrates this artists remarkable
intellectual reach. Similarly, the interview
with Moira Roth, taped in 1973, allows
us to see him through his own words. For
example, although he is frequently coupled
with Marcel Duchamp in discussions about
the evolution of art in the twentieth
century, it is intriguing to find that
Smithson expressed some negativity toward
Duchamp during their talk. Also of note
are the essays by Suzaan Boettger and
Ann Reynolds. Both offer unique and insightful
views of his mind and practice.
Ann Reynolds quite different volume,
Robert Smithson: Learning from New
Jersey and Elsewhere, is a wonderful
companion to the catalogue. She effectively
situates Smithson in terms of both contemporary
art and history. In doing so she demonstrates
how deeply she has thought about his work
and why it continues to feel contemporary
even as our relation to its historical
moment fades. Her decision to open a dialogue
with earlier Smithson scholars adds to
the books readability. When this
author stakes out her space and places
herself in terms of earlier scholars (e.g.
Craig Owens), she adds her voice in a
way that encourages the reader to want
to closely read her research. We are rewarded
by her ability to express Smithsons
practice, explain how it was informed
by his interest in repetition, and her
grasp of much that went beyond his earthwork
and the construction of the Spiral Jetty.
Some projects, for example his Untitled
(Map on Mirror-Passaic, New Jersey),
1967 establish his uncanny ability to
simplify a complexity of threads into
a coherent work. In this case, the work
consists of seven square pieces of stacked
glass of incrementally decreasing sizes.
The artist mounted a black and white photocopy
of a square section of the Weekhawken,
New Jersey quadrangle on each stacked
glass piece. The completed object thus
creates a tension between the two-dimensional
map and the three-dimensional work, while
also commenting on Smithsons New
Jersey. [How effectively Reynolds takes
us into the mind of the artist is perhaps
clearer when one turns to her very short
contribution to the Robert Smithson
catalogue.]
Overall Reynolds grapples with the
blind spots at the center of established
ways of seeing and thinking, conveying
Smithson in a sympathetic way throughout.
She introduces us to his background and,
in doing so, brings to life the way Smithson
saw his home state of New Jersey as such
a blind spot. Her inclusion of small details
further humanizes his life. For example,
she mentions that the poet William Carlos
Williams was Smithsons pediatrician
and describes the impact his poetry had
on this boy from New Jersey. A key to
her success is her lengthy discussion
of his early sculpture (1963-1967), which
aids in exposing his early perceptual
experiments. This, in turn, supports her
claim that Smithson passionately embraced
questions related to how we perceive the
world during this period and the impact
of The Responsive Eye exhibition
(at the Museum of Modern Art in 1965).
Smithsons submission for this legendary
show, (which brought together many "optical
artists" such as Victor Vasarely,
Bridget Riley, and Frank Stella), was
rejected by the curator, William Seitz,
who wrote that "although interesting and
relevant to the scope of the exhibition,"
the work did not "have an individuality
that other artists on our list have expressed"
(Seitz, 1965, p. 57). Reynolds proposes
that this dismissal propelled him toward
sculpture and three-dimensional work.
Within months he turned to free-standing
enantiomorphic experiments in distortion
of familiar objects, which allowed him
to more fully experiment with the processes
of perception and the interplay between
art and culture.
Given my life-long passion for works on
paper, the reproductions of Smithsons
drawings and diagrams in the Reynolds
book particularly fascinated me. This
aspect of his legacy is often given less
attention, so finding so many reproductions
of this aspect of his work was a real
treat. Studying them raised many questions;
however, I was surprised to find that
much of his graphic work brought Paul
Klee to mind. The catalogues of his library
(which differed in the two books discussed
in this review) included no books by Klee.
While this might suggest that Smithson
did not closely examine Klees graphic
experiments and that the similarities
were coincidental, I do not feel comfortable
drawing this conclusion. He surely must
have come across Klees work in his
travels. What I did find interesting,
when I perused the two lists detailing
his massive cross-disciplinary book collection
to see if he knew Klees work, was
that Smithson collected fewer books about
artists and art history than volumes catalogued
in other subject areas (fiction, philosophy,
science, etc.). Moreover, the volumes
listed under art leaned toward theory
and criticism rather than studies of individual
artists. In other words, scanning his
library provided the best evidence of
how this ground-breaking artist and autodidact
reached far beyond art practice and art
world in formulating the ideas that are
so intertwined with his legacy.
Juxtaposing the catalogue with the Reynolds
publication, it is clear that they offer
complementary perspectives. Even the covers
point toward this conclusion. Both were
designed with the titles superimposed
over a Smithson image. The Reynolds image,
a 1967 photograph, The Bridge Monument
Showing Wooden Sidewalks, is not a
picture reminiscent of Smithson ruminating
so much as an illustration that demonstrates
his early perceptual experiments. Looking
at it we see that he chose an angle that
could present the two sides of the bridge
walkway converging toward a vanishing
point. This quite standard perspectival
choice brings to mind that Smithsons
relationship with perceptual views evolved
over the course of his career. While it
is generally recalled that in his last
years he voiced some skepticism towards
arts fixation on sensory perception,
much of his early work shows he participated
in sensory investigation as well. Indeed,
the most accurate way of summing this
up would be to say that his fascination
with how we perceive was a defining tension
throughout his life, and one that his
work reveals he viewed from several vantage
points.
In summary, both books convey that Robert
Smithson (1938-1973) was among the artists
who pushed the boundaries of the art in
the 1960s and 1970s. Both also contextualize
his historical position and offer a wealth
of delicious details. The complementary
perspectives they offer greatly enhance
our knowledge of this well-regarded artist
and give us a genuine feel for how he
combined art and culture in the eclectic
projects that his fertile, creative mind
brought into being.
Reference:
Seitz, William. 1965. The Responsive
Eye, (New York: The Museum of Modern
Art).