Looking at the works of the American artist Robert Smithson, Philip Ursprung examines the question of how his experience of landscape is shaped by the perception of Earth Art from the 1960s and 1970s. Earth Art directs the view to the periphery and sensitizes for the influence of humans on the landscape. Ursprung therefore emphasizes the often overlooked connections between Earth Art, architecture, infrastructure, and industrialization, all of which involve human intervention in nature. The dichotomy of “nature and culture” should therefore be replaced by the poles “human – non-human”.
“Farming is basically a heavily subsidized form of landscape architecture, which maintains a backdrop for tourism.”
— Philip Ursprung
