Robert Smithson: Mines versus Gardens
Could one say that art degenerates as it approaches gardening?
This provocative statement is new to me. I discovered it in a text written by Catherine Howett in Places/vol. 3 / no. 3.
Howett suggests that Smithson's objection was targetted specifically at the aspiration of gardeners to create mini Edens in their back yards. Smithson, she asserts, was less critical of those who imitated nature's picturesque wildness. Placing these contrasting views of the garden within the context of Smithson's art works and writings, Edens emphasize the gestation and growth aspects of life cycles, whereas those who cultivate the picturesque focus on the decay and decomposition aspects of the life cycle.
Robert Smithson’s towering esteem is predicated on his ability to manifest entropy, which explains his absence from this text. This book, like the science of ecology, is a study of life. While Smithson was venturing into mine sites and quarries, the artists representing that era in TO LIFE! were being equally venturesome, but their attention was directed to open and productive biological systems.