Robert Smithson Quotes

“Cultural confinement takes place when a curator imposes his own limits on an art exhibition, rather than asking an artist to set his limits. Artists are expected to fit into fraudulent categories. 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

Cultural Confinement, 1972

“Visiting a museum is a matter of going from void to void. Hallways lead the viewer to things once called 'pictures' and 'statues." Anachronisms hang and protrude from every angle. Themes without meaning press on the eye. Multifarious nothings permute into false windows (frames) that open up into a variety of blanks. Stale images cancel one's perception and deviate one's motivation. Blind and senseless, one continues wandering around the remains of Europe, only to end in that massive deception 'the art history of the recent past'”

Robert Smithson

Smithson, Robert. " Some void thoughts on museums http://www.robertsmithson.com/essays/void.htm." Flam, Robert Smithson 42 (1996).

“Writing should generate ideas into matter, and not the other way around.”

Robert Smithson

Cultural Confinement, 1972

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

Robert Smithson

Cultural Confinement, 1972

“Nature is never finished.”

Robert Smithson

Cultural Confinement, 1972