.. via tropolism I found this interesting post on Smithson’s Hotel Palenque. It is a very detailed description about some essential points Robert Smithon‘s work with a specific focus on this hotel piece and its presentation at the Guggenheim. And it raises a good point in the following observation at a time, when artists increasingly intend to relate their talks to performance, while the common performance of lecturers gets confused to be arty or at least has to have ‘designed elements’. (related read). And not even touched here are the occurances of performativity which evolve from the intertwinings of the different media, but the cited example of Rob Rouston hints already at some good differentiations.
Another level becomes added through the – let’s say institutionalization of works into a museum environment – when originally they were especially meant and designed for a limited and floating moment of presentation and already inherented the concept memorized perception for further presentations.

But the most problematic issue about Palenque could be a non-issue for almost any conceptual artist, but it seems paramount given Smithson’s own ideological concerns with the gallery/museum space and system: to what extent should the lecture be considered “performance” or a “work of art” itself?