Robert Smithson, Robert Smithson letter to Nancy Holt | MACRO Museum

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DISPATCH N° 18

01:59:59

Dispatch is a podcast created exclusively for the museum’s website. An audio bulletin of knowledge which brings together excerpts from books, essays, aphorisms, poems, press releases, soundtracks, and stories in a diachronic dimension.

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MACRO — Museum of Contemporary Art of Rome

2020 – 2024

ROBERT SMITHSON
Robert Smithson letter to Nancy Holt
1961

#Images #Rehearsal

In 1961, at twenty-three, Robert Smithson travelled to Rome for his solo show of religious-themed paintings at George Lester Gallery. During his stay in Rome, Smithson was able to further explore his interest in Western history – in what he described as byzantine art, ideas of archetype, myth, and anthropomorphism, and what he named the “façade of catholicism”. This period is also marked by what Smithson described as an artistic and spiritual “inner crisis”.

The following is the letter Smithson wrote, while in the Eternal City, to his wife Nancy Holt, and in which are religious and apocalyptic imagery, illustrations of a broken column, nude figures, the mythical she-wolf who fed Romulus and Remus, and in the bottom-left corner of the paper, the four words, “Rome is still falling”, from which the exhibition, running through 21 May 2023 in the REHEARSAL section, takes its title.

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Robert Smithson. Robert Smithson letter to Nancy Holt, 1961 July 29. Robert Smithson and Nancy Holt papers, 1905-1987. Archives of American Art, Smithsonian Institution (download)

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Podcast Octupus

DISPATCH N° 18

In this episode:

1. Audio excerpts from Gianni Barcelloni’s video from the series Il navigatore. Ritratti di scrittori, 2006

2. Patrizia Cavalli, Isabella Ducrot dice di sé stessa, in Isabella Ducrot, Opere 1982-1985, exhibition catalog, Libreria Galleria Giulia, Rome 1985.

3. Patrizia Cavalli, Dietro non c’è niente, in Frida Kahlo curated by Achille Bonito Oliva, Silvana Editoriale, 2004

4. Patrizia Cavalli, L’intenzione e il caso, text written on the occasion of the exhibition I miei splendidi giorni tutti uguali, Studio Stefania Miscetti, Rome, 2011.

DISPATCH N° 17

In this new Dispatch episode we trace the events commemorated since 10 February 2004, analyzing the complex story that led to the establishment of the Giorno del Ricordo, which is becoming more and more the focus of a distorted narrative.

In this episode:

1. Alessandro Barbero, La verità sulle Foibe, 2021

2. Lorenzo Filipaz, Foibe o Esodo? «Frequently Asked Questions» per il Giorno del Ricordo, pubblicato su wumingfoundation.com, 2015.

DISPATCH N° 16

The new Dispatch was realized by sound artist, performer and curator Diana Lola Posani. The episode offers a diverse range of texts that focus on the connection between deep listening and desire Soundtrack by Ivan Liuzzo.

In this episode:

1. Pascal Quignard, BUTE, 2008

2. Marius Schneider, La musica primitiva, 1960

3. Elisa Biagini, Filamenti, 2020

4. Diana Lola Posani, La cascata e la gioiosa permeabilità, 2022, originally published in English by The Journal of the Sonic Art Research Unit (Oxford Brookes University)

DISPATCH N° 15

In this episode:

1. We are witnessing a crime against humanity, article by Arundhati Roy, The Guardian, 28 April 2021.

2. Tropical Parula, Indaiatuba, São Paulo, Brazil

3. Self Portrait, poem by David Whyte.

4. Press release of the exhibition SOMETIMES DOING SOMETHING POETIC CAN BECOME POLITICAL AND SOMETIMES DOING SOMETHING POLITICAL CAN BECOME POETIC by artist Francis Alÿs at David Zwirner Gallery, New York, from February 15 to March 17, 2007

5. Sud e Magia, text by Ernesto de Martino, Feltrinelli publicher, Milan 1982

6. Antico Adagio, music by Lino Capra Vaccina

DISPATCH N° 14

This new Dispatch episode has been realized by sound artist and performer Ramona Ponzini, whose vinyl Trees are Columns with Clouds on Top (2019) is on display in the show Autoritratto come Salvo.

This Dispatch is dedicated entirely to Salvo.

In this episode:

1. Franco Battiato, Di passaggio, from L’imboscata, PolyGram, 1996

2. Salvo, 40 nomi, Gravestone, 47,24 x 18,11 in, Private collection, 1971

3. Salvo, Io sono Salvo, in Salvo – Sette incisioni e sette poesie, Marco Noire edition, 1983

4. Gian Marco Montesano, …Il catalogo è questo! (Aria del catalogo), in Salvo-Landscapes, Trento, Studio d’Arte Raffaelli, 2000

5. Aleksandr Blok, Notte, strada, lampione, farmacia…, 1912

DISPATCH N° 13

For this new episode of Dispatch, I invited Giulia Crispiani, one of the artists on show in my RETROFUTURE section, to curate a special episode. Drawing inspiration from the city of Rome, its sounds and an imagined rain that features as a sort of MacGuffin in her writing. Here, she reads Monsone perpetuo, which could be called a prelude to Il Futuro è finito ieri, the work which you can find in my physical space.

In this episode:

Giulia Crispiani reads Monsone Perpetuo, 2018

Sound by Federico Antonini

DISPATCH N° 12

In this episode:

1. Roger Callois, The Writing of Stones

2. Fairy Pitta, Lake Miike, Miyazaki, Japan

3. Lucy Lippard, The Pink Glass Swan

4. Steve Reich, Come Out (Nicolas Jaar Remix)

5. Alfredo Jaar, The Eyes of Gutete Emerita

DISPATCH N° 11

In this episode:

1. Marguerite Duras, an excerpt from da Scrivere

2. Common Sandpiper, Luspebryggan, Sweden

3. Wyslawa Szymborska, Possibilities

4. Laurie Anderson, Language is a virus, 1986

5. Press Release Irrigitation Veins: Ana Mendieta and Carolee Schneemann

DISPATCH N° 10

This new episode of Dispatch comes out on the occasion of the #Giornatadelcontemporaneo organized by AMACI — Association of Italian Contemporary Art Museums.

I invited Nicola Pecoraro, artist and creator of my avatar, to curate this special episode. Drawing intuitively from the landscapes that surround him, he proposed for my podcast a remix of heterogeneous contents, such as the sound elements taken from everyday life and the fragments of songs that trace his research or his collaborations and make up a collage of voices.

In this episode:

1. Intro

2. Nicola Pecoraro, Respire L’infinir, 2020 (excerpt)

3. Interlude 1

4. Edited posts from the electronic music forum on www.gearslutz.com

5. Interlude 2

6. Introduction chapter from The Last Man, by Mary W. Shelley, 1826 (part 1)

7. Interlude 3

8. Introduction chapter from The Last Man, by Mary W. Shelley, 1826 (part 2)

DISPATCH N° 9

In this episode:

1. Randy Kennedy, Language as Sculpture, Words as Clay on New York Times

2. Leonard Cohen, First of all, from The Book of Longing

3. Brown Thornbill, Ambleside, Devonport, Tasmania, Australia

4. Etel Adnan, taken from The cost for love we are not willing to pay

5. John Cage, In love with another sound

6. Press Release Lo Savio, la Galleria D’arte Selecta, Rome, 1960

DISPATCH n° 8

This podcast was made during Pauline Julier’s residency at the Swiss Institute of Rome, in occasion of the evening Event Horizon — Là où commence le ciel conceived with Filipa Ramos (September 2002).

Sources are, by order of appearance:

1. Anne Carson, Lecture on the History of Skywritings, © The Louisiana Channel, Louisiana

Museum of Modern Art, 2019

2. Forensic Architecture, Cloud Studies, 2020

3. Quinn Latimer, Dear Drone, Letter in response to Pauline’s video, 2020

4. Vinciane Despret in conversation with Filipa Ramos, 2020

5. Michelangelo Antonioni, Au-delà des nuages in Rien que des mensonges, 1991

6. Helmut Völter, The Movement of Clouds Around Mount Fuji, Photographed and Filmed by

Masanao Abe, 2016

Produced by the Swiss Institute of Rome, in collaboration with MACRO, Rome.

DISPATCH n° 7

In this episode:

1. Celso Amorim, A Post-Pandemic World Order, on Progressive International

2. Fernando Pessoa, Autopsicografia, from Una sola moltitudine

3. Spotless Starling, Toledo, Castilla-La Mancha, Spain

4. Emanuele Coccia, extract from Astrologia del Futuro, Flash Art

5. 99chants, chant#1: DAVID AUGUST — DCXXXIX A.C.

6. Press release of the exhibition Under the Sun, by Lawrence Weiner, in 2009 at Espai d’Art Contemporani Castelló

DISPATCH N° 6

In this episode:

1. Jörg Heiser, Artists in Quarantine, public intellectuals, and the trouble with empty heroics

2. Eurasian Wren, Hakone, Kanagawa Prefecture, Japan

3. Giorgio Caproni, Sassate

4. Press release of the exhibition Soul of a nation: art in the age of black power, 2017, Tate

5. Amiri Baraka, Who Will Survive America?

DISPATCH N° 5

In this episode:

1. Slavoj Žižek, What I like about coronavirus, on Spectator Usa

2. Yellow-Fronted Parrot, Wondo Genet Forestry College, Southern Nations, Ethiopia

3. Patrizia Vicinelli, febbraio 1962

4. Wolfgang Tillmans, On My Own, 2018

5. Press release of the exhibition Visual and Non-Visual Art Expression in 1940 at The Museum of Modern Art

6. Arundhati Roy, Il nostro compito è fermare il motore, from Comune Info.

DISPATCH N° 4

In this episode:

1. Bruno Latour, Immaginare gesti-barriera contro il ritorno alla produzione pre-crisi, from Antinomie Scritture e Immagini

2. Laughing Falcon, Sendero Ojo de Agua, Guanacaste, Costa Rica

3. James Lee Byars, Text of The Hundred One Page Stone Books

4. Arvo Part, Salve Regina, 2006

5. Press release announcing the Robert Morris exhibition at the Tate Gallery, scheduled 28 April — 6 June 1971

DISPATCH N° 3

In this episode:

1. Filipa Ramos, What the virus wants, from The Contemporary Journal

2. Northen Cardinal, Merritt Island, Florida, USA

3. Bernadette Mayer, Fish & Chips, from Poetry Foundation

4. Giacinto Scelsi, Chukrum

5. Press Release of the exhibition The Clock, Christian Marclay

DISPATCH N° 2

In this episode:

1. Giorgio Agamben, Distanziamento sociale, from Una Voce on Quodlibet.it

2. Chipping Sparrow, Washington, Maryland, USA

3. Open Letter II, by Storm de Hirsch, from Mythology for the Soul: The Collected Poems of Storm de Hirsch

4. Sabbie Vergini, Albergo Intergallatico Spaziale

5. Press Release of the seminal exhibition Information, which took place at the MoMA in 1970

DISPATCH N° 1

In this episode:

1. Timothy Morton, Thank Virus for Symbiosis, from The Corona Essays

2. Melodius Blackbird, San Josè, Costa Rica

3. Patrizia Cavalli, from Le mie poesie non cambieranno il mondo

4. Aphex Twin, Tha2 (world scam mix)

5. Paul Preciado, The loser conspiracy, from Artforum

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Contact
Maddalena Bonicelli
T +39 335 6857707
m.bonicelli@museomacro.it
press@museomacro.it

Contact
Maddalena Bonicelli
T +39 335 6857707
m.bonicelli@museomacro.it
press@museomacro.it

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