the beauty of the Mark, the intention or ambivalence of the Maker

Robert Smithson 1970 diary page

http://www.earthworks.org/links.html

william anatasi subway drawings

http://www.subwayseismo.com/about/

Often ( and for me as an artist this is not always a good thing) on the way to creating a new piece I will see a scrape on a wall, an inadverdent mark on a piece of tin or plastic, or the claw scrape of a wild animal on a tree and say to myself-

forget it! forget art!

you will never make a mark as provocative or beautiful.

parking lot markings
http://gscottage.blogspot.com/2007/08/pavement-markings-for-band-practice.html



artist Cy Twombly

http://www.menil.org/twombly.html


physicist Clint Sprott

http://sprott.physics.wisc.edu/

the icon and its maker

In the 1970's, a piece of land art was constructed that spiraled off the Great Salt Lake.

The image and the memory, even if second hand, is pretty indelibly marked on several different groups and generations.

Understand, artist Robert Smithson has made no noises about claiming, in fact he is rather quiet.

So the questions here are rhetorical and meant to stretch to other iconographic works as well.

Is the artist responsible now for the archetypal quality, the coil of dense projection that has happened to this work?

Did he simply create the work and the interaction with the environment- and now should not accept the mastery or ownership-

I DID IT I DID IT I DID IT

Let go let go Let go