Resumen de Picturing autonomy: David Smith, photogrpahy and sculpture
How does photography shape an encounter with sculpture in terms of designating a setting, point of view, and frame? This essay explores how sculptor David Smith responded to this question by deploying unexpected vantage points to frame loose collectives of his sculptures in landscape. Not neutral illustrations, rather these images constitute a public display for sculpture in which objects are dislocated in time and space, opening up a new reading of sculptural autonomy or homelessness in modernism. Situated alongside photographic displays of works by Constantin Bracusi, Henry Moore, Alberto Giacometti, and Louise Bourgeois, Smith's photographs show that qualities of sitelessness can be construed photographically in addition to being indicated by a sculpture's surface or pedestal. Smith's photographs raise questions about the role of public sculpture in the post-war era. Even though he used photography to dramatize his sculpture's separateness, it is argued that he still held on to the notion of a public using a medium that could be circulated widely.
