ABSTRACT
This chapter begins with the writer recalling first encounters with Dean’s work, and with Nicolas Bourriaud and his Altermodern show’s theorisation of a new cultural paradigm. Having laid out an understanding of this theory, the writing turns towards a piece made by Dean about the artist Robert Smithson and to Smithson’s invocation of George Kubler’s geological approach to time, history, and art history. The chapter turns towards the artist’s research into Donald Crowhurst and the story of his failures and deceits as a yachtsman. The chapter closes with ideas of history and veracity gleaned from an interview between the writer and Dean.
