Robert Smithson’s pursuit: Mapping some traces of remnants

Abstract

In drawing close attention to selected works by artist Robert Smithson and filmmaker James Benning, this essay deals with questions of remaining and recollection in landscape, art works, and literary texts. In the view expressed here, mainly with reference to Smithson’s lesser known map works and to Bennning’s film on his art work Spiral Jetty in the Great Salt Lake in Utha, the perception of space and time – that is, landscape as we see it – always begins and ends with a map. Meaning, with a representation in mind. This is so because we learned to read maps in some other place, somewhere else than the place we are when we find ourselves consulting them at a later point in time. Thus, the use of maps can be viewed and intepretated as a practice of re-reading.