East Coast, West Coast
Robert Smithson
American, 1938–1973
Nancy Holt
American, 1938–2014
1969
Robert Smithson's 22-minute black-and-white video with sound stages intimate, lo-fi conversations and scenes to explore contrasting places and to translate his land‑art concerns—site, time, and entropy—into the language of television.
You're immediately aware of the TV‑like grain and horizontal scan lines over close-up faces—two people mid‑conversation—so that texture, flicker, and everyday domestic detail feel as significant as the dialogue.
By moving his site‑specific, entropic investigations into video, Smithson helped open up television and videotape as tools for conceptual art and for thinking about place, perception, and cultural distance.
Medium
Video (black and white, sound)
Dimensions
22 min.
Classification
Department
Credit
Gift of Jerry I. Speyer and Katherine G. Farley, Anna Marie and Robert F. Shapiro, and Marie-Josée and Henry R. Kravis
Accession
1186.2008
Palette
Art Terms
Exhibitions
