This innovative study of two of the most important artists of the twentieth century links the art practices of Allan Kaprow and Robert Smithson in their attempts to test the limits of art - both what it is and where it is. Ursprung provides a sophisticated yet accessible analysis, placing the two artists firmly in the art world of the 1960s as well as in the art historical discourse of the following decades. Although their practices were quite different, they both extended the studio and gallery into desert landscapes, abandoned warehouses, industrial sites, train stations, and other spaces. Ursprung bolsters his argument with substantial archival research and sociological and economic models of expansion and limits.
List of Illustrations Preface and Acknowledgments Introduction Limits to Growth: The Sixties and Early Seventies The Continental European Perspective Allan Kaprow and the Limits to Painting "Oedipal--just for fun": Allan Kaprow and Art History Environments "The Legacy of Jackson Pollock" The Hansa Gallery Art and the Division of Labor: 18 Happenings in 6 Parts My 18 Happenings in 6 Parts The Happeners' Bodies A Service for the Dead Calling The Triumph of Pop Art The Nonentry of Happenings into the Art Museum "Happenings in the New York Scene" Claes Oldenburg versus Allan Kaprow Naturalism and Modernism Performing Architecture Site Specificity Fluids The Limits to Sculpture: Robert Smithson and Earth Art The Excursions: Critiquing Minimalism "The Crystal Land" "The Monuments of Passaic" "Incidents of Mirror-Travel in the Yucatan" Hotel Palenque The Triumph of Minimal Art The Sculpture Boom and the Case of Michael Fried Robert Smithson and Marcel Duchamp Dan Graham and the Legacy of Robert Smithson Site and Nonsite Robert Smithson as the Artistic Advisor to the Dallas--Fort Worth Airport A Nonsite (An Indoor Earthwork) Limits Earthworks Entropy Partially Buried Woodshed Spiral Jetty Political Landscape Robert Smithson and Michael Heizer The Military Sublime: Earth Art and the War in Vietnam "Cultural Confinement" Broken Circle/Spiral Hill and the Land Reclamation Projects The Limits to Art History Texts, Ephemeral Media, and Technical Reproductions in Art Scholarship Conclusion Notes Bibliography Art Credits Index
