Interpreting David Smith’s Photography Through a Medium-centred Model of Communication

Abstract

American sculptor David Smith moved fluidly between media to elicit the kind of aesthetic reaction that he believed was unique to and inherent in modern art. As remediation of his sculpture, Smith’s photography attains its own performative power by establishing a new aesthetic relationship with its spectators. This article applies Lars Elleström’s medium-centred model of communication to the analysis of the intermedial quality of David Smith’s photography. By emphasizing the significance of mediality and communication, it offers a new interpretation of the transmutation of modern sculpture as an alternative to modernist aesthetics. In this way, this case study of David Smith’s photography functions as an initiative of expanding the research of intermediality beyond formalistic analysis, by integrating art history with communication and media studies.