Artists on Robert Smithson

Artists from Matthew Buckingham to Diana Thater address the rich legacy of Robert Smithson’s films, sculptures and Spiral Jetty

This is the fifth volume in a series that builds upon Dia Art Foundation’s Artists on Artists lectures. The contributors to Artists on Robert Smithson engage with Smithson’s work in myriad ways: Matthew Buckingham’s essay highlights Smithson’s preoccupation with the ways that histories of the earth are constructed and contested; Abraham Cruzvillegas considers Smithson’s work with broken glass and architecture; Mark Dion’s didactic approach to the life and work of the artist recounts the conceptual and evolutionary conditions that led to his birth and development; Teresita Fernández confronts the limitations of dominant histories of place, art and the monumental; Trevor Paglen considers Smithson’s iconic spiral and his fascination with natural history; Rayyane Tabet weaves together a history of basalt that reveals themes of colonialism, surveillance and strife; and finally, engaging with the science fiction canon and its cinematic conventions, Diana Thater provides a close reading of Smithson’s Spiral Jetty film.