Words by Lupe Baeyens / lupebaeyens

For the very first time, Robert Smithson’s work will be showcased through a standalone exhibition ‘Abstract Cartography’ in the Marian Goodman Gallery and the Holt/Smithson Foundation at the New York Gallery. 

Robert Smithson, best known for his earthworks Spiral Jetty (1970) spent his years researching how things are organised in the world and what purpose they have. Abstract Cartography brings us back to the sixties, 1966 to be precise as Smithson starts exploring his so-named inklings of earthworks. Through a selection of carefully curated and thought-provoking artwork, we get to see a unique glimpse of the world through his radical and artistic lens aiming to provide an answer to what art can be and where it can be found.

In 1966, Smithson first coined the term crystalling network, when working as an artist-consultant – a self-invented job – where he was tasked to figure out what an airport is and drew the similarities of the vast terminal site with a crystal network that relies on a firmament of statistics. This tapped into his greater interest in travel, cartography, geology,… surfacing in all of his work from his quasi-minimalist sculptures to his ecologically charged earthworks, and although created more than 50 years ago – the relevance of his work and research has never been more pressing. 

The exhibition invites the viewers to rethink and question our place in the world. Smithson achieves this through a so-called laboratory of sculptural thinking, sculptures scrutinising crystal geometry, making a strong case to interweave art with society. One of the ahead-of-his time ideas was to create aerial art, visible from the air (as the name would suggest) that would become two-dimensional when looked at from an ascending aircraft, these artworks would be installed in the middle of the airport as an invitation to watch time pass while waiting. Although this idea didn’t see the light of day, it was the basis on which he continued his research and art, as he collaged maps and altered proportions to distort perspectives. 

Probably one of Smithson’s most noteworthy pieces of art is his ‘Nonsites’, or ‘indoor earthworks’ as he called them. These artworks would bring material from a site into the museum – the nonsite – with the distance between both creating a metaphor as abstract as the maps we use to locate ourselves. “In the Nonsites, the prehistoric reference comes through, but the sites are all here today, within the maps of materials (stone, mud, grass, and shells). All of these things point to continents and landmasses that don't exist today. That establishes a context.” Smithson believed that maps were fiction, mere approximations of reality as he continued to rethink how scale, site, and sculpture could be understood. 

In an addition to his larger work of arts, Smithson was a keen photographer, shooting landscapes and natural sites with an Instamatic 400. His photography brings nature and so-called spatial art to life, and often features hidden metaphors and asks to be interpreted. In his work, he pays great attention to spacing and framing, drawing the attention to details that otherwise would go unnoticed and in doing so building further on his ideology that the existence of place is reliant on its representation.

This exhibition celebrates the creative genius that was Robert Smithson and the contributions he brought to the Land Art Movement and if you’re not yet convinced, the rarely seen photo work for the Double Nonsite California and Nevada. 

Robert Smithson: Abstract Cartography launches at the Marian Goodman Gallery New York and is open from June 24 to August 20, 2021.