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.

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Construite sur une analyse approfondie des archives de Robert Smithson, cette thèse réévalue la série des Nonsites (1967-1969) dans sa relation d'inspiration avec les Géosciences. Elle rappelle le contexte culturel des années soixante comme toile de fond pour l’inspiration de l’artiste et détermine l’envergure de son expertise dans le domaine des sciences. Des documents préparatoires inédits viennent éclairer son processus de création et la manière dont il formule ses œuvres complexes, à partir des sources géologiques, de l'information scientifique et de la muséographie. La relation entre arts et sciences apparaît centrale dans l’élaboration des Nonsites. Chaque œuvre de la série est ainsi rattachée à ses sources artistiques et scientifiques et révèle le moment historique de l’émergence de la sculpture post-minimale. Le jeu de l’espace muséal avec la tridimensionnalité est alors enrichi par le déploiement de strates d’informations contextuelles et crée les prémices d’une interaction nouvelle entre œuvre et spectateur.De plus, deux perspectives ouvertes sur un choix d'œuvres de Giuseppe Penone et Olafur Eliasson démontrent comment leurs démarches artistiques sont en résonance avec les préoccupations créatives de Smithson. Il est ainsi possible de problématiser l’expédition scientifique de terrain (et la manière de penser le territoire qui lui préexiste), ainsi que les agencements muséographiques en art comme en sciences comme sources déterminantes dans la confluence de l’art et des sciences. / Based on a thorough analysis of Robert Smithson's archives, this dissertation re-evaluates the Nonsites series (1967-1969) in its inspirational relationship with the Geosciences. It recalls the cultural context of the sixties as a backdrop for the artist's inspiration and determines the scope of his expertise in the field of science. Unpublished preparatory documents enlighten his creative process and the way he formulates his complex works from geological sources, scientific information and museography. The relationship between arts and sciences is central to the development of the Nonsites. Each work in the series is thus linked to its artistic and scientific sources and reveals the spectacular historical moment of the emergence of post-minimalist sculpture. The play between the museum space and three-dimensionality is then enriched by the deployment of layers of contextual information and provides the basis for a new interaction between viewer and artwork.In addition, two perspectives are drawn towards the work of Giuseppe Penone and Olafur Eliasson and demonstrate how their artistic approaches resonate with Smithson's creative concerns. It is thus possible to problematize the scientific field expedition (and the analysis of the territory, its prerequisite), as well as the museographic arrangements, as determining sources in the confluence of art and science.

The years around 1970 saw the emergence of an artistic fascination with maps and mapping. In the present thesis this fascination is conceptualised as a mapping impulse, acknowledging how the discourses of art and mapping, respectively, intertwine and merge. The aim of the study is to analyse this mapping impulse and to identify recurring themes and concepts in artworks and texts on art where maps and mapping processes are used as a visual expression and method.  In order to demonstrate how the scope of the thesis is shaped by later interpretations of art from around 1970, three exhibition publications from three decades are examined to illustrate how boundaries between the discourses of art and of mapping are renegotiated from the late 1960s up until the 2010s. The representing line of the map is analysed via the concepts of diagrams, maps, and models, such as the re-appearance of Claude Shannon’s and Warren Weaver’s Communication Model in the Swedish late 1960s, Öyvind Fahlström’s World Map (1972), and Sten Eklund’s paintings on glass from 1968 where he transfers ideas from Wittgenstein’s Tractatus into visual representations. The procedural aspects of encounters between the discourses of art and of mapping from around 1970 are analysed in Hans Haacke’s Gallery-Goers’ Birthplace and Residence Profile Pt. 1 and Sten Eklund’s Kullahusets hemlighet (The Secret of Kullahuset). The latter work is interpreted in the light of the role of the mapping, surveying individual, and in a figurative sense, the individual in the system. Here, the concept of alienation is used, as the work delineates the mapping subject who itself is being subject to mapping.  In this thesis the mapping impulse is identified as a way to deal with territory and truth in Western art around 1970. The map as a sign system and a practice is representative of a recent stage where art in various ways deal with a world undergoing rapid change. The mapping impulse circa 1970 can be identified as a visual regime of cartographic reason, characterized by legibility, clarity and lucidity. This also suggests alternative interpretations of the impact of the linguistic turn in the art of the 1960s and early 1970s, revealing a more ambiguous relationship between text and image.

[pt] Os trabalhos de Richard Serra e Robert Smithson apresentamuma relação constituitiva com o espaço público da megalópole contemporânea. Explorando a noção de tempo específico da matéria, suas produções expandem a concepção de processo artístico e criam uma tensão com a arquitetura e o espaço institucional da arte. Ao propor a crítica a estes espaços e explorar o mundo, ambas as obras estabelecem um jogo de semelhança com a megalópole, incorporando a racionalidade de seu espaço ético, político e cultural. Para tal, considero a relação com a Nova York laboratorial na qual Serra e Smithson desenvolvem intenso debate com seus pares, relação constitutiva que aconteceu com e na caótica Manhattan do final dos anos de 1960, bem como nas áreas suburbanas de New Jersey. Smithson constrói sua obra tendo a entopia do subúrbio de new Jersey como referência determinante, a partir da qual tempos e espaços infinitos são trazidos às suas realizações. O embate de Serra com a cidade assume por sua vez um caráter concreto e literal. Trabalhando no próprio caos e nas ruínas contemporâneas da urbe, ele propõe uma nova relação entre obra, o espectador e o entorno. Em ambos os artistas encontrados o esforço do largamento do conceito da escultura contemporânea numa nova relação como mundo. / [en] The works os Richard Serra and Robert Smithson have a founding relationship with the public space of the contemporary megalopolis. By incorporating the notion of the specific time of material, their output expands conceptions of the artistic process and sets up a tension with architecture and the institutional space of art. As they propose to criticize institutional space and explore the word, the works set a play of similarities with the megalopolis, incorporating the rationale of its ethical, political and cultural space. I therefore investigate the relationship with the New York laboratory where Serra and Smithson engage in intense debate with their peers. This founding relationship was formed in and through the bustling Manhattan of the late 1960s and suburban areas of new Jersey. The decisive reference for Smithson s work was the entropy of the New Jersey suburb, from which infinite times and spaces are brought into his work. Serra s clash with the city is concrete and literal in nature. Working in the midst of the chaos and contemporary ruins of the city, he proposes a new relationship between the work, the spectator and the surroundings. There are elements in both artists that strive to broaden the concept of contemporary sculpture in a new relationship with the world.

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