Esta pesquisa parte da obra do artista norte-americano Robert Smithson (1938-1973), sobretudo de seus escritos deixados. Desde o início, a vontade era a de andar às voltas de um modo específico de conhecimento do mundo: escrever sobre a intricada relação entre teoria e prática no campo das artes visuais. Estudo cujo conteúdo teve por lastro as referências - literárias, artísticas, teóricas e históricosociais - sintetizadas nos textos do artista eleito. Tal contexto de trabalho conduziu as análises deste ensaio, cada forma determinada por seu próprio repertório. Escavando assuntos com palavras, sempre rente à coleção de escritos de Robert Smithson. Experimento por acabar, resta um conjunto composto por dezessete pequenos fragmentos. A execução desta montagem representa uma adaptação ensaiada repetidas vezes diante de um espelho. O tiro partiu de local pouco conhecido; o cartucho era de festim: ricocheteou até perder força e cair, por fim. / This research departs from the oeuvre of the American artist Robert Smithson (1938-1973), especially from the writings he left. From the beginning, the will was to surround a specific way of knowing the world: to write about the intricate relation between theory and practice in the visual arts field. Study whose content had as its ballast the references - literary, artistic, theoretical, historical and social - synthesized in the texts of the elected artist. Such work context conducted the analysis of this essay, each form determined by its own repertoire. Excavating subjects with words, always close to the collected writings of Robert Smithson. Unfinished experiment, a set made up of seventeen small fragments remains. The execution of this assemblage represents an adaptation rehearsed repeatedly before a mirror. The shot came from little-known site; it was a blank cartridge shot: ricocheted till it lost strength and fell, at last.

Esta pesquisa parte da obra do artista norte-americano Robert Smithson (1938-1973), sobretudo de seus escritos deixados. Desde o início, a vontade era a de andar às voltas de um modo específico de conhecimento do mundo: escrever sobre a intricada relação entre teoria e prática no campo das artes visuais. Estudo cujo conteúdo teve por lastro as referências - literárias, artísticas, teóricas e históricosociais - sintetizadas nos textos do artista eleito. Tal contexto de trabalho conduziu as análises deste ensaio, cada forma determinada por seu próprio repertório. Escavando assuntos com palavras, sempre rente à coleção de escritos de Robert Smithson. Experimento por acabar, resta um conjunto composto por dezessete pequenos fragmentos. A execução desta montagem representa uma adaptação ensaiada repetidas vezes diante de um espelho. O tiro partiu de local pouco conhecido; o cartucho era de festim: ricocheteou até perder força e cair, por fim. / This research departs from the oeuvre of the American artist Robert Smithson (1938-1973), especially from the writings he left. From the beginning, the will was to surround a specific way of knowing the world: to write about the intricate relation between theory and practice in the visual arts field. Study whose content had as its ballast the references - literary, artistic, theoretical, historical and social - synthesized in the texts of the elected artist. Such work context conducted the analysis of this essay, each form determined by its own repertoire. Excavating subjects with words, always close to the collected writings of Robert Smithson. Unfinished experiment, a set made up of seventeen small fragments remains. The execution of this assemblage represents an adaptation rehearsed repeatedly before a mirror. The shot came from little-known site; it was a blank cartridge shot: ricocheted till it lost strength and fell, at last.

[pt] A pesquisa investiga as relações entre percurso, escrita e entropologia presentes na obra do artista visual norte-americano Robert Smithson. Considerando sua proposição de entropia, que postula o desgaste inevitável da matéria e a busca de suas evidências in situ, o corpus do estudo será constituído especialmente por dois trabalhos de texto e fotografias produzidos em movimento: A tour of the monuments of Passaic (1967), em que Smithson visita o subúrbio de Nova Iorque onde cresceu rodeado por terrenos em construção em torno do conceito de non-site como ruína ao reverso; e Mirror displacements in the Yucatán (1969), quando o artista visita o território mexicano, posiciona espelhos na floresta tropical e estabelece um diálogo especulativo com as divindades maias e astecas. Em ambos, o artista sai em busca de sinais de ruína, acúmulo e desgaste na paisagem, em um exercício de entropologia – isto é, uma abordagem artística dos efeitos da entropia na paisagem e na cultura, um desdobramento da prática proposta por Claude Lévi-Strauss no final de Tristes Trópicos e levada à cabo por Smithson através de suas obras em deslocamento. Com olhar atento às camadas de produção textual do artista, a pesquisa examina, de maneira especulativa, as anotações de Smithson sobre a construção conceitual do non-site e como ele pode ser constituído através de uma escrita desdobrada em mapas, cartografias e rascunhos que acompanham seus textos, propondo uma leitura atualizada de determinadas questões estéticas e políticas levantadas pelo artista nos anos 60, tais como o enantiomorfismo, a cristalografia, a cultura como acúmulo e desgaste e o pensamento científico como ficção. / [en] The research investigates the connections between travelling, writing, and entropy present in the work of the American visual artist Robert Smithson. Considering his proposition of entropy, which posits the inevitable wasting away of matter and the search for its evidence in situ, the corpus of the study will consist especially of two works of text and photographs produced in movement: A tour of the monuments of Passaic (1967), in which Smithson visits the New York suburb where he grew up surrounded by building sites revolving around the concept of non-site as ruin in reverse; and Mirror displacements in the Yucatán (1969), when the artist visits the Mexican territory, places mirrors in the rainforest and establishes a speculative dialogue with Mayan and Aztec deities. In both, the artist travels in search of signs of ruin, accumulation, and decay in the landscape, in an active exercise of entropology - that is, an artistic approach to the effects of entropy on landscape and culture, a development of the practice proposed by Claude Lévi-Strauss at the end of A World on the Wane and carried on by Smithson through his works in displacement. With an attentive eye on the layers of the artist s textual production, the research examines, in a speculative way, Smithson s notes on the conceptual construction of the non-site and how it can be constituted through an unfolded writing in maps, cartographies, and drafts that accompany his texts, proposing an updated reading of certain aesthetic and political issues raised by the artist in the 1960s, such as enantiomorphism, crystallography, culture as accumulation and decay, and scientific thought as fiction.

Cette étude a des assises autant dans l’histoire de l’art que dans l’esthétique du cinéma. Son point de départ est une aporie : « Qu’est-ce que le mouvement en image dès lors il s’agit de le chercher en dehors des représentations et de leurs techniques ? ». La substance mobile des images dont nous souhaitons faire ici le cas se situe à l’intérieur même du point de vue et non pas à l’enchaînement entre points de vue. Il s’agit de penser sa construction en termes d’un clivage interne, d’une bifurcation. Il s’agit surtout de placer la construction du point de vue au croisement de deux apprentissages [mathésis] : d’un côté celle de la contemplation du monde à partir d’un point fixe, unique ou changeant, de l’autre celle de la mobilité inhérente qui régit tout aspect de la vie. Dans ce contexte, le mouvement des images ne serait pas seulement le résultat d’une révolution du regard ou l’aboutissement d’une aventure technique, mais également et au même titre qu’eux, le résultat d’un événement conflictuel entre deux configurations du [sa]voir différentes bien que totalement pondérées. « Qu’est-ce qui ne marche pas ? » est la question qui nous guide à travers l’écriture. Les images témoignent d’une forme de [dé]marche transversale, d’un accident de la « marche » tant au niveau structurel du film qu’au niveau diégétique. Elles renvoient à quelque chose comme un trouble, un dissentiment. Chaque partie de ce travail constitue, enfin, une étude de cas. Chaque cas dénonce une aporie de point de vue : pittoresque, elliptique, théorique. Les films analysés, très différents les uns des autres, proviennent du cinéma et de ses pratiques élargies. Mais chacune des trois parties est également conçue autour d’un « metteur-en-scène » au sens large : Robert Smithson, Gus van Sant, Victor Burgin. Issus de la grande famille des artistes et non seulement de celle des cinéastes confirmés, ils nous guident à travers la construction de récits ancrés autant dans l’histoire des arts [peinture, sculpture, architecture] que dans les péripéties du cinéma contemporain. / Both art history and cinema aesthetics lie at the foundations of this study. Our starting point is a perplexing difficulty [an aporia]: “What is an image motion when we think about movement beyond its representations and the techniques that accompany them?”. In this dissertation, we examine the mobile substance of images from within the standpoint itself and what resembles to an internal cleavage. We argue that a particular kind of viewpoint can emerge at the crossroads of two different understandings [mathesis]: on the one hand, the contemplation of the world from a single or interchangeable fixed point; on the other hand, the corporeal mobility inherent to every aspect of life. Within this context, image motion is more than just the consequence of a major change in our “ways of looking”, or the outcome of a technical adventure. We argue that image motion is equally the result of a conflict between two different configurations of knowledge - seeing. The images attest to a way of thinking and unthinking motion, illustrated by a disruption in “the walk of the images” which takes place both in the film’s narrative and in the film’s structure revealing something like a trouble, or a dissent. Each section in this work constitutes an autonomous case study. Each case relates to a particular bifurcation of the standpoint: picturesque; elliptical; theoretical. The films in question, very different from one another, stem from cinema and its expanded practices. These three sections are also articulated around three “metteurs-en-scène”: Robert Smithson, Gus Van Sant, Victor Burgin. Belonging to the larger family of artists [and not only to that of confirmed filmmakers], they guide us through the unfolding of a narrative, whose roots are to be found as much in the history of the arts [painting, sculpture, architecture], as in the vicissitudes of contemporary cinema.

[pt] A partir do conceito de intervenção de Robert Smithson criado nos final dos anos 60, em que transforma a própria ideia de sítio utilizada inicialmente nos trabalhos de Land art, ao trabalhar de forma orientada para os sites específicos e permite que sejam escavadas diferentes camadas de significado presentes nesses locais, reafirmando a capacidade da arte em penetrar questões de natureza política, econômica, social e cultural e introduzir um olhar crítico sobre a situação urbana. Tais contribuições de Smithson basearam as intervenções do projeto Arte/Cidade em seus quatro módulos realizados na cidade de São Paulo, no período de 1997 a 1997. As instalações do projeto levaram em consideração a escala urbana assim como aspectos sociais e políticos que insidiam em áreas escolhidas e enfatizaram contradições, perdas de referências e transformações sofridas pela metrópole. Busca-se no presente trabalho avaliar as contribuições do terceiro módulo do projeto, A Cidade e suas Histórias ocorrido na cidade de São Paulo em 1997, e suas articulações com história, patrimônio e utilização do espaço urbano na metrópole. / [en] From the concept of intervention of Robert Smithson created in the late 60s, it transforms the very idea of site initially used in the works of Land Art, while working in a targeted manner to specific sites and allows different layers of meaning are excavated present at these sites, confirming the ability of art to penetrate matters of political, economic, social and cultural nature and introduce a critical eye on the urban situation. Such contributions Smithson based project interventions Art / Town in its four modules conducted in the city of São Paulo, in the period 1997-1997. Facilities project took into consideration the urban scale as well as social and political aspects which threaten areas chosen and emphasized contradictions, loss of referrals and transformation within the metropolis. Search in the present work was to evaluate the contributions of the third module of the project, The City & Histories held in São Paulo in 1997, and its links with history, heritage and use of urban space in the metropolis.

[pt] A pesquisa se volta à filosofia de Martin Heidegger para iluminar obras de arte contemporâneas que dizem respeito à paisagem. Embora Heidegger não tenha abordado diretamente este tema, aparecem inúmeras referências à paisagem ao longo de sua obra, seja por meio de metáforas ou desenvolvimento de tópicos correlatos. Para isso, enfocou-se, especialmente, seus escritos sobre natureza, arte, espaço e o habitar poético. Objetivou-se explorar três questões: a relação entre natureza, arte e paisagem; a elaboração artística da paisagem como uma construção conjunta entre artista e natureza; e, por fim, a construção de uma nova compreensão espacial da paisagem a partir da obra de arte. Assim sendo, por meio de duas obras paradigmáticas: o Parque do Flamengo (1965), de Roberto Burle Marx e a Spiral Jetty (1970), de Robert Smithson, discutiremos, respectivamente, as duas últimas questões colocadas anteriormente. / [en] The research turns to Martin Heidegger s philosophy to illuminate contemporary works of art that relate to the landscape. Although Heidegger has not directly addressed this issue, numerous references to the landscape appears through his work, whether in metaphors or co-related topics. Therefore, we focused especially his writings on nature, art, space and dwelling. This study aimed to explore three issues: the relationship between nature, art and landscape, the construction of a work of art joint between artist and nature, and finally, the construction of a new understanding of the landscape space from the work art. Thus, from two paradigmatic works – Park of Flamengo (1965), Roberto Burle Marx, and the Spiral Jetty (1970), Robert Smithson - will be discussed, respectively, the last two questions.

Dissertation: "Beyond Familiar Territory" researches various visual and conceptual strategies that facilitate connection between urban-based audiences and peripheral areas of ground where the extraction of mineral resources occurs. The Dissertation is a comparative analysis of selected works by Robert Smithson, Alfredo Jaar, and the Bark Petitions of the Yirrkala people in North East Arnhem Land. The focus is on how these artists have endeavoured to challenge urban audiences, disrupt the perceived hierarchy between centre and periphery, and bridge gaps between urban sites of mineral consumption and overlooked sites of mineral extraction. ¶"Beyond Familiar Territory" takes the form of this Dissertation (33%), and an exhibition of works at the Canberra Museum and Gallery (CMAG) from 6 February to 21 March, 1999, which, together with the Studio report, documents the outcome of the Studio Practice Component (67%). ¶ Report: "Beyond Familiar Territory" researches various visual and conceptual strategies that facilitate connection between urban-based audiences and peripheral areas of ground where the extraction of mineral resources occurs. To decentre the self-importance and perceived inclusiveness of urban centres by bridging gaps or facilitating insight between a centre of mineral extraction and production and a centre of mineral consumption. The Dissertation entails a comparative analysis of strategies used by Robert Smithson, Alfredo Jaar, and the Yirrkala Bark Petition painters, and analyses how these artists have perceived their relationships as mediators or facilitators between mining sites (and associated activities) and urban centres of consumption. ¶ "Beyond Familiar Territory" takes the form of an exhibition of works at the Canberra Museum and Gallery (CMAG) from 6 February to 21 March, 1999, which comprises the outcome of the Studio Practice Component (67%), together with a Dissertation (33%), and the Report which documents the nature of the course of study.

[pt] Robert Smithson, artista americano da Land Art, procura ampliar seu campo de atuação cultural, para isso, o artista atua no limite entre os meios artísticos. Suas ações - nas quais o indissolúvel vínculo entre matéria e mente seria o vórtice engendrador - promovem fraturas, seja no universo da arte, seja no correspondente mundo, que permitem a eclosão das suas obras poéticas e seus jogos artísticos. O artista não privilegia meio algum de atuação, contudo, fabula o panorama zero - território fictício das possibilidades plásticas – a partir do qual reformula imaginativamente tempo e natureza. Em seus textos, Robert Smithson evidencia outros nexos para o fazer artístico – evidentemente gerando ainda o desvio na circulação da produção - e parte para assimilação irrestrita de seus dispositivos operatórios e sua transitividade: site e non-site, dialética entrópica, atopia, escala, cristais inorgânicos, espelhos, mapas, labirintos, deslocamento, materialidade, paisagem, deriva e, finalmente, a escrita. Todavia, tais elementos não são fortuitos; eles transitam, grosso modo, entre a qualidade da atualidade em arte – por constante tensão produtora - do circuito artístico e as correntes revivenciadas, paradoxalmente pelo artista, dos romantismos, o Alemão, poético e filosófico de élan verbal; e o sublime, a experiência da formação da cultura americana. / [fr] Robert Smithson, artiste américain du Land Art, cherche élargir son champs d’actuation cuturelle, ainsi, l’artiste joue sur le limite entre les moyens artistiques. Ses actions – dans lequelles il y avait l’indissoluble lien entre la matière et l’esprit comme tourbillion générateur – font avancer des fractures, soit dans l’universe de l’art, soit dans le monde correspondant, qui permetent d’éclosion de ses ouevres poétiques et ses jeus artistiques. L’artiste ne valorise aucun moyen d’actuation, pourtant, il imagine le panorame zero – un territoire fictif de les possibilités plastiques – apartir duquel reformule imaginement du temps et de la nature. Dans ses articles, Robert Smithson manifeste des autres sens pour le faire artistique – évidement il y gère un genre de detourne sur la circulation de la production – et il pars encore à l’illimitée assimilation de ses dispositives opératoires au-délà de sa transitivité : site et nonsite, dialetique entropique, atopie, échelle, cristaux inorganiques, miroirs, chartes, dédales, deplacement, materialité, paysage, dérive et, à la fin, l’écriture. Toutefois, ceux éléments ne sont pas aléatoires ; ils y traversent, en gross, la qualité de l’actualité dans l’art – à travers d’une tension productrice – du circuit artistique et les mouvements révécus, paradoxalment par Smithson, du romantismes, l’allemand, poétique et philosophique d’élan verbale ; et le sublime, comme experience de la formation de la culture américaine.

Cette thèse s’origine dans un étonnement. Il s’agit de comprendre pourquoi, au milieu des années 1960, plusieurs artistes de la nouvelle avant-garde américaine s’emparent d’un objet que la modernité de l’art semblait avoir à jamais abandonné : la perspective linéaire. Pourquoi cette construction, intimement liée à l’héritage artistique de la Renaissance, cristallisa-t-elle les préoccupations d’artistes qui entendaient liquider cet héritage s’inscrire dans une histoire strictement américaine de l’art ? Comment put-elle se concilier avec l’élaboration d’un projet d’avant-garde ? Le but du travail est de passer du constat d’un paradoxe au diagnostic d’un symptôme. Pour cela, il convient de dépasser le sentiment d’un retour incongru et rétrograde du passé de l’art, pour considérer la manière dont la perspective est suscitée à nouveau par un champ contemporain qui la déplace en l’exploitant. Notre étude se concentre sur les cas de Robert Smithson (1938-1973) et de Mel Bochner (1940-), d’abord, parce que leurs usages de la perspective furent les plus concertés et les plus conséquents ; ensuite parce qu’ils occupent deux positions à la fois proches (liés d’amitié, ils réfléchirent et travaillèrent ensemble) et distinctes : là où Smithson, d’abord lié au mouvement minimal, s’orienta vers le Land Art, Bochner se rapprocha du courant conceptuel. Cette diversité de pratiques permet de saisir la manière dont la perspective résonne avec une pluralité de problématiques propres à la période. Trois axes principaux animent notre étude : éclairer ce qui, dans le contexte artistique contemporain, favorisa et accompagna le retour de la perspective ; préciser la spécificité des usages et des pensées de la perspective que développèrent Smithson et Bochner et la manière dont ceux-ci fut souvent la pierre de touche de leurs particularismes ; comprendre comment l’un et l’autre transformèrent l’objet qu’il convoquaient, et réinventèrent la perspective plutôt que de la réhabiliter. / This dissertation is born out of astonishment. It aims at understanding how, in the middle of the 1960s, several artists of the American avant-garde seized an object that artistic modernity seemed to have discarded for good: linear perspective.Why did this device, so tightly linked to the legacy of Renaissance art, crystallize the interest of artists whose project was to put an end to this legacy and to write a strictly American history of art? How could it fit into an avant-garde agenda? This work aims at turning what seems to be a paradox into the understanding of a symptom. This means overriding the feeling of an incongruous and reactionary comeback and understanding how perspective is called forth by a specific context that recodes it and transforms it.To do so, we focus on the works of Robert Smithson (1938-1973) and Mel Bochner (b.1940). First of all, because they are the two artists, among the avant-garde, who most engaged with perspective. Secondly, because they were both close (as friends they thought and worked together) and apart in the artistic field: Smithson drifted from Minimalism to Land Art, while Bochner moved toward Conceptual Art. This diversity helps us observe how perspective reflects several questions at stake in the artistic landscape. Three main lines of questioning structure this dissertation: highlighting what features of the artistic context trigger this return of perspective; specifying how Bochner’s and Smithson’s use of and thinking about perspective differ from this general context and reflect their particular positions; and finally, showing how they both transformed the object they conveyed, reinventing perspective rather than simply recalling it, and eluding its usual definitions to produce new ones and reveal others.

The dissertation re-examines the philosophy of Georges Bataille within the context of post-Kantian aesthetics and argues for a re-evaluation of Bataille’s notion of expenditure [depenser] within this context. The dissertation argues further that the artistic practice of Robert Smithson is an exemplary case of an ‘aesthetics of expenditure.’ It is our contention that Bataille’s cosmic-energetic philosophy finds a complementary material expression in Smithson’s abstract geology and its confrontation with post-Kantian aesthetics. We will argue that this occurs through Smithson’s varying strategies, which are grouped conceptually according to the broader logic of their expression:seriality, sedimentality, monumentality, and meandering. While Smithson’s own references to Bataille in the early 1970s are discussed in detail, it is not our position that Smithson was enacting Bataille’s philosophy ‘aesthetically’; rather, by reading Bataille’s evaluation of Kant’s aesthetics and teleology in relation to Smithson’s artistic practice, we emphasize instead that the politics of disgust shared by both figures advance a radical decentring and repositioning of the human in relation to planetary and geological forces. If, as geologists now agree, our present age is that of the Anthropocene1, our argument is that Bataille and Smithson anticipate this precarious condition analytically, and, perhaps more importantly, that their analysis suggests further important diagnostic considerations at the level of social organization and political composition that might help defer, if not entirely prevent, the catastrophic end of this all-too-human period.