When Broodthaers and Haake criticzed museums, were they only trying to be “professional noncomformists,” or did they have something valuable to say about the interaction of museum and art? Were their goals the same as Duchamp’s, or were they saying something new?
- I think this was already done by Duchamp, only through different methods.
- Also, this “confrontation” the artists had with the museum is similar to Duchamp in that it seems to be more probing for a reaction than saying something specific. Maybe, then, Broodthaers and Haake were creating something new in that they were continuing to question and probe, thus learning and redefining the relationship between museum and artist and artwork.

In Smithson’s “non-sites,” Smithson makes his work “at a midway point between ‘presence’ and ‘absence’. As information was given, so it was drained away.” This is because he brought a sample from some landscape into the museum for the audience to see, and then notice that they are missing the whole of the landscape. Does this characteristic of information being given while being drained away apply to other art we’ve seen? Isn’t all art incomplete in its representation of reality, so that we’re always being reminded of something that’s not totally there in the museum with us?