![]() In September 1968, Smithson published the essay "A Sedimentation of the Mind: Earth Projects" in Artforum that promoted the work of the first wave of land art artists, and in 1969 he began producing land art pieces to further explore concepts gained from his readings of William S. Works from this period include Eight-Part Piece (Cayuga Salt Mine Project) (1969) and Map of Broken Clear Glass (Atlantis) (1969). This resulted in the series of 'non-sites' in which earth and rocks collected from a specific area are installed in the gallery as sculptures, often combined with mirrors or glass. In 1967 Smithson began exploring industrial areas around New Jersey and was fascinated by the sight of dump trucks excavating tons of earth and rock that he described in an essay as the equivalents of the monuments of antiquity. Smithson became affiliated with artists who were identified with the minimalist or Primary Structures movement, such as Nancy Holt (whom he married), Robert Morris and Sol LeWitt. He called these urban/suburban sprawls "slurbs." Smithson viewed entropy as a form of transformation of society and culture, which is shown in his artwork, for example, the non-site pieces. His ideas on entropy also addressed culture, "the urban sprawl and the infinite number of housing developments of the post war boom have contributed to the architect of entropy". Smithson's interest in entropy led him to write about a future in which "the universe will burn out into an all-encompassing sameness". Crystalline structures and the concept of entropy became of interest to him and informed a number of sculptures completed during this period, including Alogon 2, (1966) composed of ten units, the title of which refers to the Greek word for an unnamable, irrational number. His wall-mounted sculpture Enantiomorphic Chambers was made of steel and mirrors and created the optical effect of a "pointless vanishing-point". His new work abandoned the preoccupation with the body that had been common in his earlier work, and he began to use glass sheet and neon lighting tubes to explore visual refraction and mirroring. ![]() Īfter a break from the art world, Smithson reemerged in 1964 as a proponent of the minimalist movement. Paintings from 1959 to 1962 explored "mythical religious archetypes" and were also based on Dante's Divine Comedy such as the paintings from 1959 Wall of Dis and The Inferno, Purgatory and Paradise, that correspond to the Divine Comedy's three-part structure. He produced drawings and collage works that incorporated images from natural history, science fiction films, classical art, religious iconography, and pornography including " homoerotic clippings from beefcake magazines". He primarily identified as a painter during this time, and his early exhibited artworks had a wide range of influences, including science fiction, Catholic art and Pop art. He studied painting and drawing in New York City at the Art Students League of New York from 1954 to 1956 and then briefly at the Brooklyn Museum Art School. When Smithson was nine, his family moved to the Allwood section of Clifton. In Rutherford, the poet and physician William Carlos Williams was Smithson's pediatrician. Smithson was born in Passaic, New Jersey, and spent his childhood in Rutherford until he was nine. He was one of the founders of the land art movement whose best known work is the Spiral Jetty (1970). His work has been internationally exhibited in galleries and museums and is held in public collections. Robert Smithson (Janu– July 20, 1973) was an American artist known for sculpture and land art who often used drawing and photography in relation to the spatial arts. Robert Smithson, Spiral Jetty in 2004, Rozel Point, Great Salt Lake, Utah.
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