Robert Smithson

Robert Smithson is surely best known for Spiral Jetty (1970), and Earthwork on nature's grandest scale at Rozel Point on Utah's Great Salt Lake.  Made with a bulldozer, the sculpture comprises the materials of its location: mud, salt crystals, rocks, water.  Smithson died in a plane crash in 1973 while he was working on another large Earthwork, Amarillo Ramp.  As works like there show, he focused in his forward-looking and influential career on a reconsideration of the nature of sculpture-or rather, of sculpture in relation to "nature," as nature is constituted in our time.

Spiral Jetty, 1970

The natural material used to create his art, previously foreign to art in the exhibition space, serve to idetify the origin of a work's materials-far from the art-supply store.

"Instead of putting a work of art on some land, some land is put into the work of art."

The use of mirrors emphasizes the important role played by  reflection in Smithson's redefinition of sculpture.  As the mirror reflects the work's setting in a museum or gallery space, it also relieves sculpture of its static nature by capturing the movements of visitors and opening up the work for multifaceted viewing.

Sixth Mirror Displacement, 1969

*Dia:Beacon, Lynne Cooke and Michael Govan, Dia Art Foundation, 2003